Shades of Sunrise
by mrie
Summary: In which Sakura is injured and Itachi is nothing she expected. On hate and healing, anger and adoration, and how easily everything can change. – Itachi x Sakura. AU
1. prologue: listen

**author's note: **So. Itachi x Sakura. This is new. But Sasuke is an asshole and I am infatuated with this idea, if not actual product. Also new: First person. And: _Actual chaptered story. _Thus I am entirely unconfident and unsure as to whether or not this will go anywhere. Am suffering a major case of insecurity. And so I whine.

Pertinent to the actual fic and not my psyche: loose (because I am lazy) AU from somewhere directly before Itachi's death. Obviously.

* * *

**Shades of Sunrise**

_prologue: listen_

* * *

Everyone wants to know _why._

Listen.

* * *

I was looking for Sasuke. I was _always_ looking for Sasuke, back then. Have you ever missed someone so bad it hurt? That it ate you up, starting deep in the secret dark of your heart and expanding, blooming, _infecting _everything else, from the top of your head to the tips of you toes? That's how I missed Sasuke. That's why I trained with Tsunade, that's why I crushed concrete beneath my fists – that's why I went through years with a little empty spot in my chest labeled 'Sasuke was here.'

I was skirting the borders of a Sound base, following up on rumors and bar-gossip, not hopeful but desperate because you get to be that way, after a time. Days drag to months that drag to years and you get to be raw, sensitive and even the little things, the outside chances, start to count.

Usually, Naruto was with me on these missions, but this time I was alone. Alone is scary, when you're a ninja. We're trained to work as a team, a unit, a seamless whole (or, in my and Naruto's case, a ragged patchwork of a whole, with cracks and chunks missing, with glue and tape and hope all that holds it together. And Sai is one of the glued-in pieces, don't forget, so we are a _special_ sort of awkward). Anyway. I was alone and it was scary and I should have known that something bad would happen.

It did.

One second, I was crouching on a branch, smothering my chakra and sitting very, very still. I remember trying not to breathe, because the sound of the air hissing through my lips was muting another, more dangerous sound. There was someone nearby, close enough to sense but they were good at what they did and I could just make out a flickering, faded sort of chakra signature that seemed to waver between existing and not. They were like a word on the tip of your tongue; right there, right beyond what you can reach, close enough to taste but not near enough to grab. One second, I was crouching on branch and narrowing my eyes in concentration. The next, the world exploded.

* * *

I do not, in all honesty, quite remember all of what happened next.

It was Sound-nin, I am sure, and I am almost certain there were four of them. Maybe five. They came from above, with exploding tags and loud, echoing bangs. I was thrown from the tree but I am a ninja and it was not so hard to arch through the air and land ready to spring into action. We fought, and this is where everything starts to blur.

Here is what I remember: Punching a tree and watching two figures fly from the debris; a kunai whizzing past my side; shouts and screams; a new chakra signature, one that I didn't pay attention to, not really, because I thought it belong to one of my adversaries; a new fear flicking across the nin's faces.

There was a ripple that went through them like a wave, a look of trepidation passing through one set of eyes and into the next, and I knew something was happening. One of them threw something, something the size of my fist and round, dark. I didn't know what it was but I knew that I did not want to be near it, so I leapt back, away. I was not fast enough.

It exploded and they ran.

For a second, I was confused. Why were they running? Why, after such a dramatic explosion, had nothing happened with the strange, small explosive?

I realized two things in the next ten seconds. The first: The chakra signature from earlier was still approaching, and I suddenly realized why the Sound ninja had run. Chakra like lighting, I thought. Chakra like power given form, massive and rippling and a vision of Naruto, clawed and tailed, flashed behind my eyes. _Run_, my mind screamed. I tried and I realized something else: Everything hurt.

Now, it is ridiculously obvious that the bomb had been a gas bomb. Now, I know how useless it was to stand there, in the middle of a forest, and press my hands to my belly and think _heal. _Because even as I felt the toxin leaving, even as I mended myself, I was getting weaker. It was like trying to stop a river with your hands, like catching the wind. In my panic, I forgot about the powerful chakra that was still coming my way, because this had _never happened before_.

I don't remember anything past the point what I heard footsteps, felt my chakra pounding uselessly against my melting innards, and thought _I'm going to die._


	2. chapter one: in sickness

**note: **There is no chance in Hell subsequent chapters shall arrive this rapidly. High expectations are no friend of mine ;)

* * *

_chapter one: in sickness_

* * *

After the trees outside of Sound, the next thing I remember is the feeling of throwing up.

It was bad. The toxin was strong, something I had never encountered before. Rolled on my stomach and dry heaving in a blurry, black world, I could _feel _the damage. I don't know how to describe it but to say that it was the greatest physical pain I have ever been in. It was like someone had lacerated my guts and filled them with stinking poison that rotted all that was left. It was like some sick _thing_ had crawled up inside me, hollowed me out and made me its home. Considering that I am a ninja, that cuts and stabs and broken bones are as much a part of my life as food and sleep, the fact that I was literally delirious with pain says what I cannot.

Despite the fact that my brain had been stripped bare by hurt, it was still achingly obvious that I had to try to heal myself. So I did. Blind, deaf, and vulnerable, all I could focus on was the feel of my chakra flowing through my veins, knitting up holes that seemed to reappear just as soon as they vanished. I did not wonder where I was. I did not question how I had gotten there. I just lay there, on some unknown surface in an unknown dark, and drifted in and out of consciousness, all the while fighting what seemed a useless battle with my own failing body.

* * *

I think it was on the second day that I fell across the murky boundary between sleep and wakefulness to the feel of water on my lips. I remember an upwelling of overwhelming gratitude.

* * *

Then I woke up and my brain was working, slow and sluggish but at least I could make sense of something other than pain.

I was in a small, cramped room. It was dark, musty, with wooden floors and wooden walls. The bed I was in was small, the sheets scratchy against my bare arms as I shifted, wide-eyed and still muggy. There was no other furniture, no litter, no belongings stuffed in random corners. Blank. Empty.

I still hurt, deep and throbbing, almost overwhelming but I knew I needed to focus. I tried to roll out of the bed, but it didn't work. My feet hit the ground and when I tried to raise myself up, everything went blurry and there were needles under my skin, pokers in my brain, and I clutched to the sheets, waiting for the storm to pass. My chest hurt and I couldn't catch my breath; there were tears building in my eyes from the effort required to not throw up.

Before that second, I had not been scared. There had been no time, between the painful moments of lucidity and the long stretches of shallow, empty sleep. But lying on those scratchy sheets, gasping for air and trying to calm my heart before it pounded right out of my hot, aching chest – I was terrified. It had been years since I was weak, years since I had felt that certain brand of vulnerability that comes with knowing you are absolutely not strong enough – and it had never been like this, fighting invisible monsters, swinging blind, drowning in helplessness and unable to even reach for the sky.

I fainted.

* * *

I was only half awake when he walked through the door. He must have thought I was asleep. If he had waited another minute, I probably would have been. My chakra was running low from constant healing, and the poison had sapped my energy, leaving me brittle and exhausted.

Regardless, when I saw him, I sat bolt up right. Training kicked in and I scuttled back until my I was pressed into the junction of the two walls the bed was against. My hand curled around my canteen, and I gathered my chakra into a tight, controlled bundle even as black spots gathered around the edges of my vision.

Uchiha Itachi stood in the doorway, looking at me as though I was just another facet of his naked room.

My breath was coming in pants, and I was shaking from a combination of adrenaline, fatigue, and terror. It was only when his red eyes caught mine – impassive, calm, _bored_ – that I remembered the danger and focused instead on his feet. _Idiot! _I cursed myself, mind full of torture and despair. Oh, God. It was horrible, and I distinctly remember praying that he would kill me and not bother with the Tsukuyomi. Watching his feet, steady on the wooden floor, I wondered what had happened to my benefactor. Why was I was so special that Itachi would kill someone to get at me? The thought of someone dead on my account twisted my tight, fluttering stomach.

And Itachi just looked at me, a silent specter, tall and horrible, filling up the room and _his chakra – _I recognized it immediately. It was everywhere, filling the spaces of the room, all around me, not boiling but simmering, calm and deadly, hot and heavy and I wondered how long I would last, if it hurt to go insane.

In my life, I have fought many people, most of them 'stronger' or 'better' than myself. Hell, I killed an Akatsuki. I was strong, I was fierce, I was a good ninja and I knew it. But I also knew that I was currently weak, sick, falling apart at the seams. And I knew that even in the very best of circumstances, even when I was at my most powerful, I would not stand a chance against the infamous Itachi.

"You have been here four days."

I did not look up, but jumped in surprise, not expecting him to say a word before ending me. The feet moved slightly. Every muscle in my body tensed, and the canteen dimpled beneath my fingers. My mind was whirring, spinning like a hamster's wheel, trying and failing to figure out how to survive the situation. There was a stream of visions going through my head, my 'life flashing before me eyes,' and regret tasted like acid on my tongue.

Itachi set down a bundle, and then kicked it towards the bed. I startled, knew a moment of total panic, and threw myself against the wall. But the bundle did not move and neither did Itachi. I don't know why, but the stillness petrified me. The entire situation was too much to handle. My body was protesting all the excitement; I felt woozy, dizzy, empty and pitiful. The urge to curl up into a ball and sob was overwhelming.

"There is food in there. More water as well. I suggest you make use of it."

Then he was gone.

I waited until that chakra – huge, wild, but contained and controlled,_ horrible_ and intimating – had retreated off to somewhere not so far away.

And then I collapsed. Relief. Confusion. Fear. Gratitude. All I wanted to do was be home.

I didn't touch the bundle, even as my empty stomach whined.

I cried until I knew no more.

* * *

The next time I woke up, there was the canteen of water propped against my side, full and cool. Around me, the room was empty and barren, its secrets hidden. I chugged down the liquid and tried not to think about where it had come from or the slow-burn fever that simmered through me.

* * *

I got worse before I got better.

Later, he told me that it lasted three days. It seemed like so much longer. A thousand years of pain, a lifetime of fear, and a decade of dry heaves.

This time, the shaky, fumbling grip of sickness was much harder to handle. Not only was a significantly weaker, but now I knew who kept appearing from the blackness, whose hands it were that tilted my head and let water trickle down my throat. At first, I thought he was trying to kill me. Delirious and burning with fever, I was certain it was poison that slid liquid-cool from his hands. Futilely, I bucked, squirmed, hissed and spat, feeble as an insolent child. I might have even cried, shamed and scared and _furious _as I was. I wonder if you can even imagine how weak I was, how helpless and frail, to just lay there, vulnerable to the enemy. I thought he was going to kill me, though I didn't know why he taking so long, when a sword or knife and swift punch would do the job in just a few seconds. I tried to think it through, but my brain was too sticky for reasoning beyond contemplating how much everything hurt.

So it went on, for longer than I thought I could handle. A bought of nausea, a few months spent gagging up burning stomach acid into the bowl that had appeared at the side of my bed, and then collapse. Wait for the hands of death to come and force water to my lips. There was nothing I could do. I was useless, at the mercy of a murderer – I hated it _so much_, because there was nothing I could do but lay limp and pray that if it was poison, it took me fast.

* * *

He says it was in the middle of the second day.

All I remember the pair of hands that rocked me back and forth, that tugged and yanked and when I awoke, were attached to red eyes and long black hair. It is a testament to how weary and resigned I was that his presence – so close, so near, _he was touching me_ – didn't illicit a reaction other than a slow sigh and internal prayer. When he shook me once more I even looked into his face, into those dangerous eyes.

"You need to heal yourself," he said. If my mouth hadn't been so dry, I might have screamed. I might have told him to fuck off. Instead I sat there, hollow. Nothing hurt. Everything was numb. My brain was dull, slow, moving from one thought to another with sticky resistance.

I realized he was right.

I had given up. Accidently, of course. Unconsciously. Healing was so hard, took so much concentration, and seemed so useless that somewhere in between trying to remember to breathe and slowly succumbing to the fog of fever, I had forgotten. Which sounds stupid. Which _is_ stupid.

_I'm dying, _I thought. Iron hands squeezed my chest, and rebelliousness stirred my leaden limbs.

He left as I gathered my chakra.

* * *

There is a chance I would have been able to heal myself without the prompting. There is a chance I would have lived anyway, that I had already done enough to ensure everything would have been fine. There is a chance that water would have magically appeared and found its way into my mouth as I lay there, helpless as a newborn.

Listen: Uchiha Itachi saved my life.


	3. chapter two: start the circle

**note:** To clarify: this is AU from sometime after the whole Sai/Sasuke/Naruto&Sakura meeting in Sound. Itachi is still alive and kicking (necrophilia is for sparkly vampires) and Kohona is still a not-destroyed village. I could give you a chapter from which it is AU, but I am lazy and not all that concerned.

* * *

_chapter two: start the circle_

* * *

By the fifth day of my being fully conscious at least four hours a day, things had begun to change.

The first day after my fever broke, I had cowered in my bed and watched with round, scared eyes as Itachi brought in a bundle of food, stared at me for a second, and then set it down and pushed it towards me. The second day was much the same. The third day, he walked a little too far into the room and in a moment of stupid fear I threw my canteen at him. It should have it him and hit him hard – but he was _so fast._ If you have never seen an Uchiha move, you cannot understand the way they flicker from one place to another, all liquid grace and deadly agility. He caught the canteen easily and, for not the first time, I thought I was dead. Instead, he looked at it, looked at me, and quirked one eyebrow. I knew this because I had given up not looking at his face; the thought of falling into the Sharingan still made the hair on my arms stand up, but, just like the food that may or may not be poisoned, I accepted the risk.

The fifth day, I threw up again, and this made all my lingering worries evaporate into burning resentment.

I had eaten the meal Itachi brought – larger than before, more substantial, and I gulped it down like I seen food eaten in days – and was on my way back to sleep. Even though I was definitely improving, I was still as weak as anything, ravaged and hollowed by the lingering poison. I slept like the dead and woke only to eat, piss, and worry.

And then it came: overwhelming nausea, bubbling up my throat from the depths of my belly.

In a panic, I stumbled to the bathroom, out my door and about four steps to the left, down a narrow little hallway. I had found it the first day I had been able to somewhat walk, guided by a silent Itachi that had discovered me poking my head out the door. I had ducked back in the room, but he had stood outside and said to the empty hall, "The restroom is here."

So I found myself vomiting up my guts once more. So I found myself hysterically trying to find and extract a new poison that I was sure had been recently introduced to my bloodstream. Just like the bastard, to lull me into some semblance of security before knocking me off with what would doubtlessly be a long, painful death. As I knelt, gasping for breath and trying to swallow back a new wave of sickness, a tall, silent presence appeared in the doorway.

Itachi stood, damnably calm as ever.

"You poisoned me!" I screeched, slumped on the ground, mouth gritty and foul, angry and scared but I had been tiptoeing for so long, and looking back now, I think this was my breakdown.

"I did no such thing," he said, edging closer but stopping when I glared and tensed. "You were not ready for so much food, it would seem."

"You bastard." My eyes were hot and tight, too full and spilling down my cheeks. I told myself if was from the vomiting. "I don't know what kind of game you think you're playing, but I quit." Concentrating so hard it made my head spin, I gathered my chakra and pushed myself to stand. In my hands, a glowing scalpel flickered into life. I grimaced. "If you want to kill me, do it now."

I did not look into his face. I concentrated on his feet, trying to determine what he was going to do. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and I could hear my heartbeat drumming in my ear. A long, low sigh came from above me.

"I do not intend on harming you."

I growled, feeling the world sway beneath me, trying not to show the fact that my knees were seconds from collapse. "Don't waste your breath."

But he just stood there, his feet in my line of visions, totally still and absolutely silent. It must have been five minutes later when, finally, I gave up. My knees crashed into the smooth, hard floor and I hardly winced. I looked up, into the face that I consciously had to distance from another face, a younger face, a face with angry black eyes and a longed for smirk. I looked up and he looked down. I'd die looking him in the eye.

And then – then he offered me his hand.

I was still simmering, still angry in that hot, irrational way that consumes your entire mind, that eats up everything but rage and leaves it bitter. So I said, "Hell no," entirely aware they could be my last words, and inched myself back to standing, using the wall as support. His hand fell, but he still stood there, far too close, watching my slow progress. At that point, I hated him so much there was no room for confusion; this was all part of his sick game, all part of his insanity. I didn't trust him for an instant.

I made it back to the bed, eventually.

It took me forever. By the time I collapsed, everything ached like it had the time I ran for a full night straight. Itachi had followed my snail's pace journey, hovering behind me like some mother chicken from hell, seemingly waiting for me to fall. It was a most inspiring incentive to not allow myself the luxury of a break. I didn't want him to touch me. I didn't want him near me. I didn't even want him to be alive.

* * *

"I'm not eating the damn food," I told him the next day, trapped and mean.

"Then you will have no strength to recover," he said.

"Why do you even care?" I shot back. I knew I was being foolhardy. I knew it was probably suicide, to act the way I did. But… But I also knew it wasn't. Or maybe I didn't. Maybe I really am just an idiot who can't distinguish the past from the present, who would like to believe that it started way back then, because now… Now I know.

Itachi was silent. That was the thing with him; he was always so quiet, so reserved, so _blank_. If he had been brash, cruel – _anything_ like crazy mass murderers were supposed to be, I have no doubt I would have still been curled up in the bed praying for mercy. But he wasn't. He was sober and calm and he brought food and he said stiff like, "Is there anything you would eat?"

Internally, I was shocked. _It's a game, _I reminded myself. _It's a game that ends with nii-san killing everyone._ It was a game but it was a game I could play as well.

"Pocky," I said, vicious. Then, considering, "And ramen."

He left without another word.

* * *

He brought the pocky – multiple flavors – and the ramen, hot and sending lazy spirals of steam into the stale air.

I glared at him and the food he held even as my mouth watered. At that moment, I was more confused than anything. Before, I had bigger things to worry about than the _why_, but now… Now a man I knew to be an insane murderer and exiled criminal was standing not ten feet away, offering my bedridden self exactly what I had asked for. It was a trick, I was sure. A trap of some sort, and extension of the mental torture I knew was coming my way, sooner or later.

But… But it didn't add up. Oh, yes, in _theory_, it seemed plain, obvious, simple and _duh_. Yet, in reality – in reality there was a boy (and he was a boy, by God. I never realized before; he couldn't have been twenty) holding ramen and waiting for a girl to tell him where to put it. And it confused me, damn it all, despite all my logical deductions.

"So I suppose you went and massacred a village for that pocky?" I asked, arms crossed and defensive.

"Of course not," he said, stepping forward. I bristled and backed away, but he set the items down on the corner of my bed farthest from where I crouched. Then he backed away.

"You mean to tell me you bought it? That you can just waltz into any old store and buy what you need?" When he was sufficiently far enough, I reached for the food. "Are you capable of encountering another human being without attempting to murder them on sight?"

He had already turned to leave, but I heard him all the same: "You're still alive, aren't you?"

_Yes_, I thought, sucking my pocky. _But I don't know why._

* * *

When he came back later, I stirred from my nap. He gathered the leftovers of my meal, ignoring my glare and shuffle away from where he stood.

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded, reaching for my ever-lower chakra supplies, fisting my hand around the cool metal of my canteen.

He looked at me, then, with dull eyes. "You should have died."

I scoffed. "So you brought me back to die." That almost made sense. "Sorry to disappoint."

He ignored me, as he seemed to do more often than not. "That poison – not many could have saved themselves. It was designed with your type in mind." He paused, and the dullness in his eyes focused on me. My heart sped up and I braced. "Your healing is quite remarkable."

Then I understood. _Of course._ I managed to get my feet under me, and hunching in the bedclothes like a wild animal, I said, "If you think, even for a second, I'll _ever_ work for you – that I'd _ever_ heal you – you're wrong. I'd rather die."

Back then, we seemed to live in a single phrase, repeated over and over, a loop on infinite – I always waited for him to snap, and he never did. Rewind, replay. I waited for the attack that never came. That would never come.

A ghost of something that might have been a smile or a grimace passed over Itachi's lips. His voice, always so controlled, lilted low. "I do not want to be healed."

* * *

By the end of the week, I was beginning to formulate an escape plan.

My chakra was practically nonexistent, by then. The constant healing – which I still had to do, nearly every second of the day – was keeping my energy from recharging, and my wild bouts of sickness did nothing to help. It made the thought of escaping impossible for the moment, but I had hope that as the poison continued to lessen its grip on me, my chakra would replenish and I could get out of that place, away from the mental torture, the constant tiptoeing, the growing confusion.

But first, I needed to better understand my situation.

"Don't you have a partner?"

Itachi paused his retreat from the room and cast me a look over his shoulder. In that moment, he looked so much like Sasuke that I had to pause and swallow back the hard knot in my throat. I _knew_ that Itachi was Sasuke's brother – of course. But it was unsettling, the similarities between them: the expressions (blank faces and burning eyes, eyebrows dancing), the way they held themselves (straight and tall and regal, elegant), and the wild power that sparked in the air whenever they were near.

"A partner," I repeated. "I thought all Akatsuki had one. Don't you?"

He nodded. "I do."

"Well, where is he?" There had been no one nearby the entire time we had been here, so far as I could tell. And if there was anther insane missing-nin in the vicinity, I wanted to know.

"He is not here." The Uchiha brothers were also similar in their complete inability to carry out a simple conversation.

"Why?"

And it was one of those moments that I should have recognized but didn't. I was too scared, too lost, too blind and naïve. I didn't understand. Not yet.

"Kisame does not like sick kunochi."


	4. chapter three: monsters

.

* * *

_chapter three: monsters _

* * *

He was driving me mad.

I think it had been a total of two weeks since the forest outside of Sound when I finally couldn't take it anymore. The walls were closing in – I swear it – and I was practically climbing up them, as stir-crazy as I was. I remember feeling like there were ants under my skin, butterflies in my stomach, fireflies behind my eyes. My thoughts started to get blurry, bright and fast and unreasonable as they were, and I felt like someone stuck on fast forward in a freeze-frame.

I knew every inch of my room. I knew that there were fifteen kunai scars riddling the North wall, five of the East. I knew that my sheets has a ragged hole in one corner, and it got bigger each day as I wormed my big toe in and out of it.

But it wasn't just the room – tiny and cramped and _annoying_ – that was getting to me. No. Itachi is the one that was really responsible.

He kept bringing me food, even after I had gotten to the point that I could waddle to the kitchen (slash bedroom, apparently; there was a old, rotten-looking futon shoved in one corner that I knew he must sleep on but I didn't want to think about it or the implications of such an action) to get myself water and snacks. He also continued to clean up after me, even when I started being messy in a fit of restless, passive aggression. Worst of all, I had gotten into the habit of talking at him as he moved in and out of my room. At first, it had been all insults and snark. After that had proven ineffectual at even turning his head, I had moved onto snide remarks about his hair ("Do think that long hair makes you more intimidating? It doesn't.") and his robes ("Black and red it so predictable.") and his nails ("Really? Do you _really_ paint your nails?"). Which were, admittedly, insults, but they were delivered for more my entertainment than to injure Itachi.

There were only so many things I could pick apart, though, before I had to move on. I started telling him about the hole in the sheets, and asking about the kunai marks in the wall. I started telling him about the jutsus I knew (not all of them, of course, because a ninja never reveals their secrets) and some of the missions I had been on, back when I was younger and chasing cats counted. I threatened him a few times. I told him about Sasori. I described ways in which I could kill a person, getting more and more graphic, more and more ludicrous, more and more _hilarious_, with each imaginary foe vanquished. Every now and then, I would remind him how much I hated him.

And you know what he did?

He listened.

He rarely talked, rarely showed anything other than detachment in any of his features, but he started hanging around my room more and more. At first, I didn't notice – I was _bored_, and if he was willing to just sit there and let me talk his ear off, who was I to deny the opportunity?

Before long, he knew my favorite color. He knew that pocky was my favorite and that my mother made the best ramen in the whole entire world, better than any ramen stand and I kind of wished I could cook, just because then I wouldn't have to depend on my mom for such ramen. I told him about this cat I had when I was six, and how he kind of reminded my of Itachi; he was black, quiet, and always came back from the tom-fights strutting proudly. I made sure he knew that the cat had bitten me once, though, so I hated him until the day he died.

I was telling him about the time I climbed a tree when I was eight and used chakra for the first time to stop myself from quite possibly falling to my death when I realized what I was doing. Fraternizing with the enemy, thy name is Sakura. I stopped mid sentence. Irrational fear made my heart speed up, and shame made my knuckles clench tight. Itachi, who had been looking at the wall, turned his head towards me and tilted it to one side. _Then?_ the angle of his eyebrows asked.

That is when I knew I had to get out of there before I lost my mind completely.

* * *

There were no traps, no barriers, no difficulties.

I waited until the middle of the night. Food I had been stockpiling for the last two days joined three canteens of water in my pillowcase. As a walked down the hall, I was on high alert for anything that might alert me to Itachi. I was fairly certain he was asleep, but… But it was Itachi. My footfall was silent and my breathing carefully controlled, and it wouldn't matter in the least if he were to wake up because – Because he was _Itachi._

I made it out without a hitch, and started South, towards home. _Home._ I smiled to myself in the gray dark, felt a bubble of elation welling my chest. It was one of those bright, perfect moments, where you could throw your head back and laugh for the sheet giddiness of the second. Back to Naruto, and Tsunade, and Ino and mom and dad. I wondered how worried they were, how long it had taken them to realize something was wrong, where they were, what they were doing – I wondered how many hours it would be before I saw them. What would they think of my adventure? Shacking up with a missing-nin for a few weeks and returning home relatively unscathed was, as far as I knew, completely unheard of.

My progress was slow. Physically, I was in a deplorable state. Still weak, still a little woozy, still apt to dissolve into a coughing fit at any moment. Furthermore, my chakra – though slightly recovered – was at a laughable level, still only just barely able to keep up with the healing that had become routine. (Tsunade, I thought with grim amusement, would be thrilled to study the poison still flitting through me; it was certainly new, and certainly destructive.) I won't lie: I should not have been traveling. Especially not through Sound.

Which, as I was about to find out, it exactly where I was.

* * *

I don't even want to tell you, because it is embarrassing. One mistake after another, and the landslide was about to bury me.

First, I was not in Kohona. I guess I had assumed that Itachi's hut was on the Kohona-Sound border. Wrong. Instead of trekking into the safety of my home lands, I was trespassing through enemy territory. Furthermore, I happened to have wandered near a settlement. There is no real excuse as to why I hadn't realized this; but I didn't.

So that's how they found me. A group of jounin. Not incredibly impressive on an ordinary day, but there were three of them and there was one of me. One very weak, very drained, very screwed me. They were not too talented, not too careful, and I heard them coming. I had about three seconds to decide my course of action. My heart started pounding, there was a wild rush of curse words and prayers clogging the wheels in my ming, and everything in my geared up for fight or flight. When I couldn't even summon enough chakra to my fist for one good punch, I gave in to flight.

I _ran._

Really, I shouldn't have been able to. Really, my body should not have put up with the sudden exertion. But adrenaline is a wonderful thing, and I turned on my tail, racing like a bat out of hell. Behind me, they were still being noisy; shouting and cursing and following after. If they caught me, I was in trouble. If they caught me, it could very well be the end of Haruno Sakura.

Itachi had not killed me. I remember this thought echoing in my head, ringing through my skull and pounding with truth even as I tried to deny it. _No, _I told myself. But then I stumbled on a root and a shock of pain followed by weakness deadened my limbs. It was suddenly much harder to breathe, much harder to move. I forged on, resigning myself.

I ran North. I ran towards Itachi. There was a chant of _please_ swirling on my tongue, even though I had no air to give it life. How far had I traveled? Would I make it? _No,_ said a slimy little voice, all fatality and grim humor.

But then he was there, right in front on me, the black shirt he wore under the Akatsuki robes mere inches from my nose. I slammed to a stop, heels skidding in the mossy dirt, a spray of pebbles marking my arrival. For a second, we looked at each other. I could feel the mad hammer of my pulse in every limb, at the tips of my fingers, and with each breath a thousand needles raked the inside of my lungs. There were black spots clouding my vision, making the world sway beneath me, and as the sound of bodies crashing through the underbrush sounded behind me, I knew the game was up. It was surrender in its most pitiable form. It was absolute resignation. I wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground and hide away from the weak, miserable person I had become.

As I broke into a fit of choking coughs, Itachi grabbed my arm, and we were gone.

* * *

Bent double and trying to catch my breath, I recognized the worn wooden floor of the kitchen. Disappointment made my body heavy, and in that moment I could have curled up around my misery and cried like a lost child. I wanted to. I wanted to _so bad. _Above me, Itachi hovered. Then, he walked to the sink and the sound of running water mixed with my raspy, heavy breathing to fill the tiny room.

"How?" I gasped, voice scratchy and thin. I stumbled to the table and braced myself.

"I followed you," Itachi said, walking back towards me.

"Well, congratulations. You've managed to recapture the prisoner." I swallowed back the tears and spoke carefully, each syllable threatening to destroy the dam I'd built within me. _Please don't let me cry in front of him._

"I guessed you would be met with opposition," he said, cool as anything. But damn if his words didn't make my blood run hot. Saying stuff like that – implying that he was not stalking me to reclaim his prisoner, that he was in fact watching out for me; that he was more than the scum I knew him to be (and for some reason I remembered his mouth as I ranted to him about slugs being unappreciated and actually quite adorable, the slow, shaky twitch in his cheek and it almost looked like he smiled, for a tiny bright second, did you see that?). This is why I had to leave, why I couldn't be around him anymore, why I needed to be home, where the world made sense and doubt didn't haunt my every thought.

"_Why?_ Why are you helping me?" I coughed and he silently pressed a glass of water into my hand. I wanted to bat him away, but I instead accepted the drink, gulped it down and let it sooth my raw throat. "Why," I continued, "didn't you just leave me in the forest?"

I looked up and Itachi was there. I didn't start, I didn't back away; he was close enough to touch, and there was only a slight fluttering in my stomach. I was not scared of him. It hit me like a blow to the stomach: I was not afraid of Uchiha Itachi.

He spoke, in that soft, low, perfectly even voice of his.

"Would you believe me if I told you it was because I am not the type of person to leave another to die?"

"No," I said, cruel and vicious, trapped and hiding wild, growing uncertainty behind spite. "I would not. I would not believe that a man that _slaughtered_ _his family_ would help a sick girl out of the goodness of his heart."

"The world is not black and white, Sakura." Itachi looked at me, looked me right in the eye, as he said this. And I don't know how to describe what was there. Regret, huge and all-consuming. Sadness, the likes of which I have never seen before. And it was like he was begging for something, something that I could give him, something that no one else had taken the time to offer. It scared me, his expression – the fact that he was capable of such an expression – because I was used to blank nothing, to apathy and calm perfection; safe because as long as he was blank I could paint him with my hate and the blood of the family he stole from Sasuke.

I said nothing, mute in shock.

With a silent sigh I heard long into the night, Itachi left.

* * *

I thought about it. I tried to make sense of it. I couldn't. Nothing added up, nothing was right, everything was twisted and confusing and every time I imagined I had found the solution a new idea would sneak up and grab me. There was nothing for it.

I went and found him.

Down the hall and through the door than swung slow and sticky into our (I winced, _our_) small, cramped kitchen. Sitting in a chair, Itachi looked up from nowhere with those red, painful eyes that he didn't want healed. I stood, awkward, arms crossed behind my back, hand fisted around a kunai. Another mistake, another loose end – what kind of ninja left a stock of unsecured kunai out when an enemy was so near? _One that wanted to die,_ my training told me.

Itachi knew. He stood slowly, blurry gaze focusing, hard like a laser. I remembered why his name meant wide eyes and shaky lips.

I went in knowing I would not win. But I _had_ to; I had to try, because nothing made sense, nothing added up, and it was driving me mad, making me insane – so I forced his hand, knowing that no matter what the outcome, all I was doing was speeding up the game.

Our fight went like this: I attacked, he blocked; I swung, he ducked away; I screamed, he was silent. Finally, I dissolved into a coughing fit. He came to lie a feather-light hand on my spasming back and I swung my arm around in a fast, vicious arch. The kunai sunk in his thigh, and my knees gave out. Itachi grabbed my upper arms and made the trip down gentle.

Circles upon circles; repeat, replay. I added a new note, but the song was the same.

"You're lying to me," I said, finally, slapping away his hands and rolling to lie on my back, eyes heavy and body sprawled.

Itachi knelt a few feet away, the handle of the kunai jutting up towards the ceiling, macabre and oddly hilarious. I wanted to laugh but coughed instead. When the silence stretched, I continued.

"You _bastard_," I said. "You lying asshole."

"What is it that I have lied to you about?"

I rolled my head to look at the ceiling. "Everything. You lied about everything."

"How so?"

"I don't know." Tears bit at my eyes but I swallowed them back, ashamed at my emotions. "I don't know. But you _did_. You _did_, somehow. Because – Because you're not who you're supposed to be. You're not –" I looked back towards him, sitting there on the gritty linoleum floor, straight-backed, hands folded perfectly, knife jutting from his leg, head tilted because he was listening intently. Just like he always did. When was the last time someone had just listened? "I attacked you. For no reason. And you… You did nothing. You… You're not – You're not _bad_."

He was silent for a long moment.

"I am, though. Very much so. I am not good. I am not kind. I am a murderer."

I closed my eyes. My head swam. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to go to sleep. I wanted the world to make sense again.

"I don't believe you."

"It is true."

Call it intuition. Call it a lucky guess. Call it a heaven-sent message. Call it whatever you like, but a switch in my mind clicked and it was like the light in your closet when you were four years old and terrified. _No monsters here._

"But is it the whole truth?"

When I opened my eyes, it was to Itachi's pale, drawn face. The fear, the hate, the helplessness –I knew, then. I knew that there was something, something deep and dark and hidden, something no one wanted to see and no one ever faced; something of an explanation.

I pushed myself to sit, ignoring the way Itachi leaned forward, ready to steady me.

"Tell me," I said.

* * *

He told me. From the beginning. He made no apologies for himself, left out no incriminating details. His voice started off strong but got quieter, quieter, faraway and ancient in grief, feathers in the wind and this was how he fell apart.

When it was over, when he was done stripping away layer upon layer of my world, I was shell-shocked and he was refusing to look at me.

"I am a monster," he said into the silence.

It took me a few minutes to remember how to swallow back the hard knot of disgust that had formed in my throat. "I'm sorry," I said, and my voice sounded like an autumn leaf, dry and ready to break. There was a sound like cruel laughter echoing in the stripped silence of my thoughts. Everything made horrible, awful sense. I wanted to deny it. I wanted to crawl up around the ache in my chest, because I knew he was telling the truth. My stomach twisted and sadness burned my heart. "I'm sorry."

I shuffled over to him. This time, it was he who backed away. But when I persisted, he came to a statue stand still. I reached for his leg. "Oh, God." My voice was thick with tears, my throat tight and sore, my chest painfully heavy, dragging me through the floor and down to the center of the Earth. "I'm sorry." I reached for the kunai, pulled it out and he didn't pull away, he didn't start, he just sat there as there was a squelch of blood, muscles tight but – but – "I'm sorry," I said again, choked on sickness and raspy with regret. I summoned my chakra, reached out and ran a hand over the wound even as my vision tunneled, because this was one hurt I could heal, damn it all, and I would, no matter my body's protest, because - "I shouldn't have – You – I – " He grabbed my wrist.

"That's enough. Thank you."

I wanted to tell him that it wasn't enough – that there was still a gash and that there was still blood and it wasn't enough because he was putting me before him and he was being _nice_ and the world wasn't fair and nothing was ever enough for anybody, and didn't he realize how horrible this all was? "I'm sorry," I said, so quiet I hardly heard myself, world blurry through the tears I was trying not to shed.

There was a hand on my shoulder. He was comforting me, in his quiet, uncertain way. I wanted to laugh, because it should be me comforting him. I wanted to laugh so I tried to chuckle. It came out as a sob.

As Itachi looked helplessly on, I sat back on my heels and cried.

* * *

He was thirteen. Did you know that? _Thirteen._

What were you doing, when you were thirteen?

I was pining after Sasuke. I was learning how to crumble earth beneath my fists. I still listened to my masters, believed in my elders, saw the world in black and white. In that, Itachi and I are the same.

What could he do?

Listen.

It was not his fault.

* * *

**endnote:** I feel like I need to mention (in self defense) that there are many arguments to the massacre being 100% Itachi's fault. But this is being written in Sakura's voice. And not any Sakura – a Sakura that _loves_ Itachi. (Because, _yes,_ that is where this is going.) So, obviously, she's not going to think it was his fault. She's going to stick up for him. Love does that to you. 'I am always all for you' and all that jazz. Yeah?


	5. interlude: hold a mirror shoulder high

So you were not even going to get an update. At least, not for a _very _long time. Life got very busy very fast. However, I want to finish this. I want the motivation. I am trying very hard to build some up and it is sort of working. Below is not a _real_ chapter. It is a chapter-between-chapters, another side of things. Very weird to do, but there you have it. Written partially in response to reviews and partially in an attempt to get back into the feel of the story. Because – no promises – I actually would very much like to see this through to the end.

* * *

_interlude: hold a mirror shoulder high_

* * *

There is a girl standing in the middle of what was once a battlefield. There is a girl, and he has seen her before. There is a girl he knows of because he knows everything about the only person in his world who matters.

Phantom poison hangs in the air, and she presses her hands to her belly.

There is green light and the dull _thunk_ of girl-flesh on the mossy forest floor.

Itachi steps closer, looking down without expression. His brother once knew this girl, once loved her, once betrayed her for a goal. And she is dying, poisoned and alone, as lost a cause as anything he has ever seen. But she is so young, so innocent, and he is not evil, not really, not deep inside where is counts.

It is not hard to reach down and arrange her in his arms. It is not hard to transport them to a small hideout in which they will not be bothered.

He gives her twenty-hours, because the green light might have at least delayed the inevitable.

He digs her grave in the shade, and feels a little more human for it.

* * *

But she does not die.

She holds on, she fights, she burns with a fever so hot it scalds the air around her and throws up more food than she could have eaten in a year. He brings her water and sits against the wall facing her bed.

Twenty-four hours come and go. The grave sits empty.

Looking at her pale, clammy face, he remembers the green glow and her small hands. When he concentrates, he can feel it still – a light that hums just below her skin, working constantly, never altering, fighting what should be a useless battle. Maybe there is something to this girl, after all.

* * *

It was his mistake. Until that moment, he has managed to avoid her moments of lucidity.

But he steps through the door and her eyes are on him. Green. Her eyes are green.

And she is suddenly _alive_, awake, alert. She is moving, she is bristling, her lips are pulled back in a grimace that could be a growl. Her hands find a weapon, and she is prepared to fight him.

Somewhere in his memory, he is smiling.

He speaks to her carefully, moves as transparently as her can. He tells her it has been four days and presents her with food and drink. She glares, angry, defiant, all tensed up and ready to spring. Bright eyes follow him, and he thinks about her tiny hands and her massive power. There is a clear message written in every line of her body: _I hate you._

Itachi fills the grave.

* * *

But then she gets desperately ill.

He has never seen anything like it. Her fever has gotten worse, though he cannot see how it is possible. His hand burns when he reaches it behind her back and pulls her up to force water to her lips.

She hisses at him, because even through the fog of death, she remembers who he is. She spits out all he gives her, squirms in his arms, pushes weakly at his hands, at his chest, at his face. He ignores her entirely. _You have to drink, little girl_. She cries – weak, hushed sobs that speak of desperation and helplessness - and he wants to quit.

It takes him too long to realize what has changed, but he finally sees the truth, panic unsheathes its claws to run along the inside of his chest for the first time in years. The hum of power is gone. She lies there, on that little bed, breathing a rattling in-out-in-in-out and she is letting herself _die._

The grave is filled in.

He is rougher with her than he has been yet. He feels lied to. He feels cheated.

"You need to heal yourself," he said.

And then he left.

* * *

She does.

He wonders at that.

As the days pass, he wonders at her.

She is scared of him. Now awake and lucid, he has seen how capable she is of anger, despite this fear. She gets vicious. She is so full of life and fire that he thinks it must spill out of her and into the world, because he finds himself provoking her in small ways, just to see those green eyes glaring and that pouted mouth swearing. She is fascinating because he has been in his own grave for so long, while she is resolutely, defiantly, _absolutely_ alive.

* * *

Then, unexpectedly and without preamble, she starts talking to him.

At first, her voice is sharp and her barbs meant to be biting. But she softens in the silence, and the words find a different candance.

How long has it been since someone spoke to him?

She does. All the time. Like he's a human. Like it doesn't matter that his eyes are red and his heart as stained as anything has ever been. Likes she doesn't know his history is as dark as eternity

* * *

(She likes green an slugs and orange and pocky and spring and sunshine and he looses his breath sometimes, because when was the last time he liked anything? She opens him up and before long where there was pity that became shock there is new thing, a remembered thing, a gentle tug and he is attached to her, because he has always been soft and scared, down in his heart-of-hearts, and she reminds him of this.)

* * *

When she runs away, he follows her, because he knows she will need help.

He does not wonder at his willingness to provide it. Some things are better left unquestioned, just as sometimes there is no answer. Itachi will help Sakura because that is what Itachi's do. The logic sounds right to his once reasonable mind.

When she is found she runs _for him_, of all things. (Because she knows what Itachi's do.) He sees and he is stunned for a second, but then is he there and she looks at him as if she expected as much.

* * *

And when she reminds him that she has not forgotten who he is, that she knows his darkness and will not abide by it, it matters and it almost-stings and she attacks him because she is wise in ways that most people aren't and he is human, underneath the underneath and buried in the darks corners and when she asks he tells because this is the closest anything has come to mattering in years and years and years.

* * *

**Endnote:** The sloppy ending was semi-on purpose. Firstly, because I do not want to give anything away that is better suited for later in the real story. Secondaly, because I wanted it to get rushed, hurried, more unbalanced and unexplainable. Because I would like to think that that was what it would feel like to Itachi.


	6. chapter four: half past

_chapter four: half past the point of no return_

* * *

There is not much to say about what happened next.

It was the in-between time, the grey area, the transition between one world and another. It was me, shocked and scared and ashamed, reeling from the truth and wishing I could go back to blissful ignorance, where Itachi was evil and the night was black and home was a beacon of light and hope – and Itachi, quiet and concerned, different in a million ways that were not different at all, but I was looking through new eyes.

I guess we had to re-learn one another.

I guess I had to forgive him.

I did. It didn't take long. Truthfully, honestly, it is silly how fast I – I came to trust him. To like him, in a slow cautious way. To stop glaring at him, to start letting him stand within ten feet of me; to smile when he walked in the door and pick food off his plate as if it didn't matter. But I have always been too compassionate, too easy to forgive and quick to forget. And the closer I looked, the more I saw, the harder it was to convince myself that he was or ever could have been someone I had any right to hate. In a situation like ours, with me bound by my own weakness and him by a convoluted sense of loyalty (or so I thought, because the truth was too obvious and too bright and too terrifying) the easiest way is to just deal.

And deal we did.

In a silent agreement, I stayed under that small roof. We both new it was temporary, that I would leave when able. In the meantime, Itachi continued to provide me with food, with shelter, with – as I looked closer, noticed without terror the buzzing of power in the corners of the rooms – protection and I continued to sleep large portions of the day and talk like a record stuck on repeat, occasionally encouraged by his soft questions. Talking to him about stupid, silly, beautiful and profound things felt like something of a gift, an offering I could give him in exchange for, well, everything. And because I am not a gratitude-less urchin I cleaned, now, on occasion, and I helped cook, when I felt inspired.

We spoke no more of what I knew. It hung between us, at once stifling and liberating. Like our situation, it was easier to just ignore.

A lot of thing were easier to just ignore, like the questions that still buzzed around my head when I lay awake some nights, eyes staring empty and ears catching the shuffles and creaks that told of a not-empty house: _Where is his partner? Why is he here? How can he stay here? When will I go home? Where is his home? Where are his friends? Does he have any friends? How could he want Sasuke to kill him? How could Sasuke want to kill him? What does he think about Sasuke leaving Kohona? What does he think of Kohona? What does he think of me?_

Someday, I thought I might ask him. Standing near hip-to-hip with him, drying the dishes he had only reluctantly agreed to hand me, I thought that someday, he might answer. _  
_

And so we fell into a sickenly domestic routine of his and hers and ours.

(Don't tell – it's my dark deep secret – but I think… No. I_ know._ I know like I know my own chakra and Itachi's palm – I know that I started to fall for him then, in that in between twilight of enemy and friend.)

* * *

**note: **Short - yeah. Necessary - yeah. Title from a Pink song ... yeah. Preluding the fluff that is my most favorite to write - _oh yeah._ More depressing to note: I am home in the states. 日本へかえりたい。


	7. chapter five: truth is here

**note:** Unsure. Wavering. To finish or not? Also: Am going to try to be better at responding to reviews.

* * *

_chapter five: truth is here_

* * *

Itachi is very bad at being human.

You see, he used to worry about me. He used to worry about me a lot. When I moved stiff and slow, when turning my head made me grimace, when I just wanted to sleep for days on end – it was there. A nervous energy, an anxious sort of eagerness that had him pacing the hallways, hovering over me, bringing pocky by the handful. But did he ever asked if I was ok? Did he ask what he could do? No way. That would be too human, that would be too normal, that would be what anyone with half a mind and half a spine would do.

Not Itachi. Those were the days in which we were still working on crumbling those barriers he held up around himself so tight and strong.

On the one hand, it made him seem that much more mysterious, powerful, above the normal planes of humanity. On the other – as he hovered and paced and looked in on me once every half and hour – it just made him laughably ridiculous, not a man-God but a boy-child.

I still remember that morning, bright and thin. I woke up earlier than usual, stiff from some weird sleeping position and cranky because I had cabin fever. Itachi immediately began puttering around me like he does, because it had been too long since he was allowed to care but he never forgot how to love. He never forgot how to love. I remember realizing this, all of a sudden, as he put rice down in front of me and stared at me for just a second too long, eyebrows lowered and almost demanding.

Itachi is very bad at being human, but it is not for lack of trying.

Realizing that sort of thing flips your world on its side.

By then, it had been long enough that I had stopped being scared of him. It had been long enough that I didn't plot ways to kill him as I fell asleep or scrubbed the soap suds from my hair. It had been long enough for me to realize that behind his pretty high cheekbones and familiar nose there were a million little secrets that shone like the sun between the clouds. But it was not until that second that I finally put the pieces together.

"I'm ok," I told him. "Really."

He looked at me as if nothing mattered. But his chakra flared hot for the tiniest second. It was like standing next to an erupting volcano, and I didn't even flinch.

* * *

Sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't seem to remember how to breathe. My heart would be racing, all the hair on my body standing on end – I would _know_ that I was scared out of my wits, but I could never remember more than quick flashes of a red dream.

Night terrors are no fun.

It didn't help that of all the things there one to get acclimated to when living with a dangerous missing-nin, the simple presence of his chakra was taking me longest to get used to. When I could see him, it was not a problem. But there was something about night, when it was just this huge _thing_ filling up all the space in the room, removed from him and given its own life that made my heart beat harder. In those half-awake moments, nightmares still dancing over my synapses, pulse still quivering like hummingbird wings, I slipped back into a few seconds of being absolutely terrified of Uchiha Itachi, if only because his chakra scared the wild thing still running in my blood.

One night, like a regularly loon, I actually got out of bed. Apparently, I grabbed for a knife and actually had some chakra ready to go. I do not remember this. All I remember is that when I woke up Itachi's chakra was a storm and he was standing right in front of me. I remember that his eyes were wide, the red glowing in the dark, and his impassive mouth was set in a decidedly threatening grimace.

"Where are they?" he demanded, voice harder than I had ever hear.

I was terribly confused. Why was I standing up? Why was there a kunai in my hand? Why was did the room feel like standing in the middle of a lightening bolt?

It is to my credit that I did not break down into hysterical tears.

I started mumbling hysterically instead. "Wha-? Uh. Why? Itachi…" I might have been hyperventilating too. I might have been shaking.

The glowing in his eyes settled abruptly. The chakra that had thundered in my conscious quieted to a low, familiar hum. Somehow, the touch of known in such an unsettling situation helped me breathe. Slowly, I was beginning to piece together what had happened. I hugged myself, holding my trembling hands tight. "Um. I'm sorry. I… well… night terrors, I think. All the stress and such, and, well… Sorry."

I looked up and shrugged, ashamed and embarrassed and feeling like the universe hated me. Hello, my name is Sakura and I can punch a hole through the earth, but I apparently also have nightmares and sleepwalk. Even then, it mattered what Itachi thought of me, and it mattered that in his eyes, I could be no more than the little girl who always needed someone else to fight her demons. I hated it. I _hated_ it.

"You are ok." It was a question, no matter how much it sounded like a statement of fact.

"Yes," I said, trying to square my jaw.

He nodded. His eyes flicked to the kunai I was still holding, my knuckles white. His nostrils flared and I imagined he was laughing in some secret place. Anger made me bite the insides of my cheeks.

"Of course you are. Even in your dreams, you fight."

"I don't remember what the dream was about."

He shrugged, the action less carefree than I was used to. "I imagine it matters little. No matter your foe, I am sure you overcame."

The anger melted, and I had to force down something like a smile. "Thank you," I said. "For coming to check."

He nodded and turned to leave. His back to me, his hand on the door handle, he said, "Good night."

* * *

The nightmares continued for some time. I sleptwalked again, though, so I never had to deal with another late night Itachi encounter, thank God.

I would still wake up some nights and know that moments before, I had been fighting my own unconscious. But no matter what the hour, it seemed that not so far away, Itachi was awake. I could feel him, the calm hum of monstrous power more focused than it should be if he were asleep. Before, I had been scared of that tidal hum. But as the days turned over and the world shifted in a thousand different ways, it was comforting to know that Itachi was awake, nearby, and calm.

Eventually, the nights of nameless terror stopped.

* * *

I don't really know how things changed as quickly as they did. I suppose it had most to do with my boredom and Itachi's borderline masochistic willingness to always be a good sport. For a long time, our days mostly consisted of me finding and testing Itachi's boundaries. You would think this would be dangerous, seeing as I was basically making active efforts to tread on a murderer's last nerve – but it wasn't at all.

Before long, I pretty much had him wrapped around my little finger. I swear to God.

I asked him for book and he provided. I tried to cook and he ate the results of my restless and thus sometimes disastrously creative mind without a complaint. When I one day took it into my head that his limited arsenal of weapons needed polishing, he simply nodded his consent. If I pestered him, he would tell me about some of the far-off lands he had traveled to. Eventually, we got to the point where he would say more than five words a day and would give his equivalent of a smile (left-cheek barely upwards twitch) if I tried hard enough for it.

He was also good for an ego-boost.

I was healing myself one evening, right after dinner, as was my routine. It was getting easier, and I was happy with the amount of time I could put into a session without feeling any of those symptoms that warned me I was doing too much. I was just finishing up when Itachi looked in on me. His eyebrows were raised in the middle.

"A-ok!" I said, smiling.

I got an almost smile in response. I expected him to leave, as per usual, but instead he hovered. I waited, because I knew what that meant. In a few seconds, he would work out a way to safely express himself. Sure enough:

"Your chakra," he said, voice not angry but almost confused. "It is unlike any I have ever encountered." There was a new look on his face, evaluating, calculating – it was a look that would have terrified me, only weeks before. But now, I recognized it for what it was, and could even pick up the wonder, the amazement, that was truly there. "It is quite spectacular."

I was shocked. Then, I wanted to laugh. His chakra crowded the room, and it was just like it had always been. Huge, all-consuming, a _thing_ of power and might and unspeakable potential. Like a storm brewing, like lightening in the sky, like thunder in your ears only not at all, because for all its terrible fury it was also unimaginably controlled.

Yet, there was no guile in his eyes. He was serious. He thought my chakra – tiny and frail, if sharp and controlled – was worth his attention. It sounded ridiculous. I told him so.

I was glad I did, because another ghosting smile crossed his face, quick and hardly there, but burning something in my throat so that for a second, I forgot to breathe.


	8. chaper six: in health

**note: **Reviews do amazing things. Like practically write this insanely fast chapter. Hearts all around. 3

* * *

_chapter six: in health_

_

* * *

_

"Good morning!" I crowed, arms above my head and belly thrown out. Itachi looked up from nowhere, as he was wont to do, and his left cheek deepened in a small smile that didn't actually exist, but counted because it was him. I smiled wider, twirled once, and sang, "Guess what I can doooooooo?"

I hooked one finger under the edge of the table that took up most of the room. It was a heavy thing, old and solid. Without so much as a grimace, I lifted the entire right side. Itachi slid over and caught a cup that had been clattering towards the floor, and the right corner of his mouth had risen. With a bang, the table was back on the ground and I was smiling for all I was worth.

"How do you feel?" He asked, going back to our tiny stove and starting to make me a bowl of miso soup, but I shushed him away and got it myself.

"Fabulous," I replied. Which was true enough, because my excitement and pride were bubbling warm in my tummy, and Itachi was still sort of smiling, and the world was a beautiful place this bright winter morning. The heaviness of my arms and the pain lurking behind my eyes were immaterial, inconsequential, because I could pick up tables again. Take that, world. "So fabulous," I continued, now dancing to kneel on the tatami mats, soup warm between my hands, "that I think I am going to go practice punching trees after breakfast."

I caught the pause in his step, and ignored it. Just like I ignored the stiff way he moved for the next hour, the way he hovered around my peripheral vision in a way that would have been awkward and shuffling if he wasn't so damn aristocratic. I could hear the words he was trying to say but wouldn't: _Are you sure you should?_

But as long as he didn't ask, I wasn't going to answer. I was going to enjoy this new rush of power I could feel tingling through me, as familiar as the sky and as missed as summer.

I went to get my knives, all polished perfect by hands not my own, and when I came back he was standing by the door, tall and towering and averting his eyes. Dear God. It was there, even then; a tightness in my chest, as if something beneath my skin and muscle were straining full for the sight of long black hair and careful red eyes. "Hey," I said, sliding around him, my hand on the door handle, "want to come with me?"

The look he gave me burned like sun-warmed bricks in winter and we walked out of our little hovel side by side.

* * *

"Attack me," he said, fifteen minutes later. We were in a clearing, sunshine dappling the ground all around. It had taken me the last five minutes to get over the sheer awesome that was being outside, where I could turn cartwheels and twist a flip and leap in the air just because it felt good. The fatigue from earlier had faded, and I felt full, fresh, exuberantly healthy.

"No," I said immediately. "Not a chance."

I closed my eyes and inhaled until my chest hurt. I exhaled on a giggle. When I opened my eyes, Itachi was glaring. Actually glaring. He rarely did that. It was for those moments when I wouldn't get out of bed even though it had been twenty-fours hours and _Sakura, you need to help your body recover;_ it was for the times when I wouldn't eat anything because my stomach sometimes felt like a shriveled little fist protesting nourishment of any kind but _Sakura, you need to eat _now; it was for the days he caught me trying to make chakra scalpels even though _Sakura, you do not have the reserves to be doing that._ Basically, it was the glare of a domineering mother – a role Itachi slipped into more often than was at all reasonable.

"It would be pointless. It would be stupid. And, believe it or not, I do not relish the idea of ruining a perfectly nice day with damage to both my body and pride."

"I am not going to hurt you. You are going to try to hurt me."

I flashed to a knife behind my back and the way his hands stopped my swings as if they were child's play. I grimaced. Then, all defiance and still-burning happiness turned good-natured defiance, "And what if I were to hurt you?"

A split second of a splintering half-smile. "I hope you can."

* * *

I, of course, did not.

But I skipped back to the house backwards, so as to better examine Itachi and continuously double-check that he eye, was not, in fact, turning purple.

"You didn't even hit me," he said.

I rammed a shoulder against his side. "Whatever you need to tell yourself."

He shoved me away with his hip and ruffled a hand through my hair.

* * *

Before the week was up, I was back to shattering trees. It was marvelous. Having my chakra back, even in some small portion, was like – well, it was like having my chakra back. Imagine having both your arms hacked off. Now imagine someone gave you back everything above your elbows. No imagine that everyday, the stumps grew just a little bit more. It was like that. And like I said – it was _beautiful._

I went out to practice every day. Itachi followed me everyday. We sparred at least once each time, and even though I still lost every time, I could tell I was getting closer to victory. I was learning him, learning his moves, his style, his strengths and his miniscule weaknesses. Of course, much of that was because he wasn't fighting me like an enemy, and he was only using his physical strength, no chakra whatsoever – but, still. In another week, I bet I could have landed a blow. Damn impressive if I do say so myself.

* * *

"Your favorite color?" I lay flat on my back, flipping kunai up to the ceiling and catching them at the last possible moment. Itachi sat cross-legged in a corner.

"Blue," he said without a pause. I almost missed the knife. Then I smiled. I liked surprises.

In addition to being able to punch trees into a million pieces, I was also recently capable of being awake more than six hours of the day without becoming zombie-like. Combine that with the fact I had already told me pretty much everything about me, and all I could do was begin my incessant torturing of Itachi with every question I could imagine. (At least, every question I could imagine that studiously avoided blood, family, and a boy we both had lost.) He was, as with most things, a good sport. Occasionally, he asked a question of his own and proved that I hadn't actually told him _everything_.

"Season?"

"Fall."

"Food?"

"Ramen."

I laughed, picturing Naruto and Itachi slurping noodles side by side. Then my chest hurt because I realized how much such a sight would mean to me.

"Weapon?"

"Myself."

A quick glance to his corner and the unequal line of his mouth confirmed my suspicions. Did you know that Uchiha Itachi is capable of humor? I snorted. "Cocky bastard. I can smell the testosterone from here."

"I would not lie to you, Sakura."

I snorted again, but then smiled at him like he made my world a better place to be. Because he did.

"Well then… You a virgin?"

Did you know Uchiha Itachi can blush and fidget and look for all the world like a scared ten year-old boy? His mouth opened but no sound came out.

Meanwhile, I clutched my belly and rolled around on the floor, trying to catch a breath even as I laughed harder than I had in ages.

* * *

The next morning, while I was eating, he stood behind me and towered like a nightmare until I turned around, because he is a freak like that, and we had yet to completely breach the years of practiced silence he kept all around himself.

"Yes?" I smiled, as bright as I could, wide and corny. Lately, such smiles had been returned with his equivalent of a grin, that left-cheek twitch I was coming to treasure far more than was reasonable. But that morning, he remained impassive. Gloomy. My own smile faded. "What?"

"You are feeling better."

I wrinkled my eyebrows. "Yes."

His mouth, already a tight line, straightened further. He nodded. "I will return shortly"

Then he left. I herd the front door open and close a few seconds later.

"He is such a weirdo," I told the empty room.

* * *

Shortly, he returned. He had supplies with him.

I sidled up and poked at the packages of food. I fixed him with a questioning stare. He made eye contact, and there was nervousness in him I couldn't explain.

With a small gesture towards the food, he said, "There is somewhere else I must be."

I remember that it felt like ice had been dumped over me. My pulse quickened and I felt my breath freeze in my chest. Somehow, I kept my voice steady. "When do you leave?"

He frowned. "Tomorrow morning."

I nodded, head bobbing up-down-up-down. Behind my back, I clenched and unclenched my fists. This was ok. This was _good. _I was feeling better, after all. I could – I could make it home. I would be fine. I would be fine. Itachi wasn't leaving me – I was leaving him, just as I had always planned, just as I should. Just as anyone with two brain cells to rub together would. Besides, who wanted to follow a missing nin around anyway, when he was surely just off to terrorize and murder and scowl and it wasn't like he was good for conversation anyway.

"I am heading South." Itachi cleared his throat, and I had to blink him in to focus. "If… If you wish, you may accompany me." He looked away. "After I take care of my business, we can continue on towards Kohona. I will get you as close as I can."

Relief hit me like a tidal wave. Later that night, tossing against the rough sheets, I would wonder if I were perhaps a bit too happy. At that moment, though, I just felt an upwellng of thankfulness. Who wouldn't want to be personally escorted (almost) home by a man who did your laundry and made you food and smiled like the sun between clouds? "I can come with you? I'll be safe?"

He frowned again, almost agitated. "Of course. I promise."

Of course. Of course. Do you understand? Do you see? Can you understand now why I fell? Of course, he said, and it wasn't an arrogant thing, not a boast. No pride, no distain, no smug undertone. I am a monster and I hate myself more than you could ever believe, and I am stained red on the outside to match my rotting insides, and every breath I take stings through years of wanting to die, but will I take care of you for as long as I am able? _Of course._

I smiled, hard and bright. "Great."

He smiled back. I swear to God. No left-cheek twitch or half-hearted grimace – a real smile, full and fierce and I will remember it for the rest of my life, because it mattered so damn much that I cannot even begin to describe it to you.

* * *

Listen.

I didn't know it yet and maybe he didn't either, but –

He loved me.

That matters.


	9. chapter seven: ties that bind

**note:** I'm on a roll, man. In other news: short and sweet or long and elaborate? Decisions decisions.

* * *

_chapter seven: ties that bind_

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* * *

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We left the next morning, while the sun was still bright and new.

Outside, wide awake despite the early hour, I waved at our hovel, childish and sarcastically sentimental. Itachi waited for me to bid my farewells, silent but soft around the edges, patient and bemused. Satisfied that I had been sufficiently ridiculous, I hiked my bag up and went to stand next to Itachi.

"Let's go!" I sing-shouted, all enthusiasm and eagerness.

* * *

The enthusiasm died rather quickly.

By noon, I was tired. Not truly tired, not tired enough for it to matter, not as tired as a civilian would have been after traveling so long, but tired enough that it mattered, to me. "So," I started, fed up with my silent companion, "where are we going?"

"To a meeting place."

I rolled my shoulders and tried to adjust my bag so the weight would stop making my lower back ache. "Who are we meeting, exactly?"

Itachi cast a glance at me out of the corner of his eye. Nervous, cautious, reassuring, just a little bit amused. When had it gotten so easy to read him? "Akatsuki."

To my credit, I only stumbled over my feet once before recovering. I swallowed, but my lip. "Uh… Really?"

Half-smile. "Really."

"They don't like me," I told him, quite reasonably. "And I pretty much hate them."

"They will not know you."

"I've fought them," I reminded him. "I killed one of them."

"We will work something out."

"You forgot about the part where _I_ hate _them_."

Itachi's face was quite serious, but the emotion behind it mocking. "You must control your rage, Sakura. If you kill them all, I am afraid there will be many nations without enemies to occupy their time."

"That," I told him, smiling, "was a horrible joke. Seriously."

"I was not joking."

"Psh! But _of course_. Uchiha Itachi is too perfect, too poised, too jaded and mostly-dead to ever crack a joke."

"I am glad you understand."

I laughed again, throwing my head back, my sore muscles forgotten.

A few bright minutes later, I had the presence of mind to ask, "So exactly how many criminals will we be meeting?" Despite my best efforts, fear was curling quietly in my belly, and I wanted to understand what, exactly, I was getting myself into.

"More than you have likely ever seen before."

I thought about that.

"But I don't need to start sharpening my knives or practicing my chakra scalpels any time soon."

"No."

I nodded. That was enough. "Ok, then. But – I'm giving you fair warning – if one of them pisses me off, there will be blood."

This time, it was Itachi whose smile looked like a laugh.

* * *

It was the third day of travel and I remember that I was grumpy that afternoon.

I was a little bit sick that day. Like, my nose was all clogged up and I couldn't breathe right. It _sucked._ Well, I might be being dramatic. I was being dramatic that day too – it just wasn't a good day. It's not like I was actually in physical distress. I just was sick and tired of putting one foot in front of the other and having to breathe through my mouth or risk gross phlemy disgustingness. Plus, the back of my neck was getting sunburned. And Itachi is not a particularly talkative traveling companion. And he didn't even seem to mind that the stupid water tasted weird.

He was annoying me that day. Ever since the early morning when he made breakfast before I woke me up and packed my bag while I was eating, I had been getting progressively more irritated– sure it's _nice_ and all, and usually I appreciate people being kind, but that day it felt more like patronization, like my big brother-mother-hen was coddling pink-princess-flower girl.

Like I said, I was grumpy.

I was just getting to the point of being nasty when Itachi stopped suddenly. I did too. When I looked up in question, he was making that face that reminded me why I had once been scared of him. Narrowed red eyes, downturned mouth, chakra building like a rumbling growl.

I sensed it too.

Faraway and faint, but present and dangerous.

"Wait here," he said. I opened my mouth to protest, but he was already gone. So insane speed was a family trait.

I huffed and set down my pack, spread my arms towards the sky and tried not to think about Itachi streaking through the forest like death, eyes on fire, all precise and deadly, vicious efficiency. I didn't like thinking about that version of Itachi. I liked thinking about the Itachi that shook his head when I made dirty jokes and kept looking at me over his shoulder like he would give me a piggy back ride if I just asked. I liked thinking about the Itachi that was carefully adoring and that wore only a thin black shirt when we were settling down for the night, who sometimes moved so I could see a flash of smooth pale belly peeking out, and…

I sensed them coming.

Yeah. Sometimes, my life sucks.

It was like déjà-vu.

Me plus trees plus enemies flooding from the corners of my vision. Me, alone, and more Sound nin crawling from the shadows every second.

Itachi was nowhere near.

There were few seconds of absolute panic. I remember the hard, heavy beat of my heart, the cords of shock that tied me up and held me still, the little voice whispering that I couldn't do this. I remember another, louder voice, the voice of every sweat-stained second and hard-earned scar screaming yes, yes I could. The spell was broken.

I came _alive._

I love adrenaline. Let it be known far and wide. Combined with years of training, and it is the deadliest substance of the face of the planet. One second, I was a deer in the headlights, terrified and weak and a just little girl with pink hair. The next, I was a ninja, I was fierce, and I was the Sakura wrought of bloody knuckles and late nights lit only by a pulsing green glow. I was flashing knives and punches that split the air, I was a dance no one could follow – I was alive and thrilled and riding the high of being able to do what I did best.

Alas, all good things must end.

Some idiot with a well-aimed exploding tag managed to knock me off my feet. Stunned by the blast, I tumbled head over heels before coming to an abrupt and painful stop at the base of a old, solid tree. _Shit_. I hurt. My head spun. But pain is life and life is pain and even as the world swam I was pushing myself back to my feet.

I stopped suddenly, though, because the enemy was standing right over me, smirking down cruelly, confidently. Like this battle was in the bag, like one tumble meant I was out, like there was no way the girl in front of him – short and slight – was anything to worry about. _Idiot._ I sneered back, calming my breath and feeling chakra like life, eager and ready to respond to my whims.

I tensed, ready to spring, to duck, to roll and stand and fight but then –

With rolling eyes and buckling knees, the man collapsed right in front of me.

For a second, the world didn't make sense.

Then, flickering like a bad television connection, Itachi was there.

"Are you ok?" he asked, offering me a hand.

For a second, I just stared up at him, mouth open. In the aftermath, the silence screamed just as loud as battle cries.

"I had it handled," I said, finally, still on my knees with his hand in front of me.

He didn't say anything. One of his eyebrows seemed to have hoisted in skepticism. The adrenaline high rapidly cooled into a nervous, rolling energy. The nerves boiled down to embarrassment and shame. All the bitterness that had been rotting inside me all day burned hot in my throat.

The anger came with starling intensity.

"I did." There was more a growl in my voice, now. I shuffled to the side and rolled to my feet. "You didn't have to do that."

"I was merely protecting you," he said, hand finally falling, looking at me with that empty expression I hated so much. "You looked like you needed it."

"Why would you say that?" I rolled my shoulders, and in my peripheral I could see the prone bodies of everyone I hadn't needed assistance in dealing with.

He raised that skeptical eyebrow higher, and all bets were off.

"I don't need you to protect me," I hissed, bristling and far more enraged that even I understood. "You are not my keeper, Itachi." Which was a half lie, because what else do you call the man who makes your bed, who washes your dishes, at whose mercy you fought your own body? But that is not what it meant and Itachi knew it. I meant something more, something deeper, something embedded in my past and exiled from my future, because I was no longer the one they left behind. " I am not a little girl who will watch you fight my battles and I am not a princess in distress. I am a ninja, and I am strong and you would do well to remember that."

I stomped past him, purposefully knocking into him as I did, unnecessarily rough because you can be like that, to the people who are forever. I bit the inside of my cheeks, resisted the urge to throw a fist into his side, to prove just how well my little arms could support themselves. With a huff and unnecessary force, I retrieved my kunai and checked to make sure no one was waking up too soon.

Itachi followed me. I ignored him, the irrational anger still burning bright.

He spoke, soft and careful. I turned and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"I know that you are strong, because I am not yet blind." He paused, bit his teeth together in a way that almost made his jaw clench, but didn't because he was Itachi. I noticed, though, because I am Sakura. "I know you do not need me, Sakura."

He stepped closer.

"I know all of that, but please understand." Instead of finishing, he just looked at me.

"Understand what, Itachi?"

He shrugged, shoulders loose and unfamiliar. "Just understand."

I stared at him. The world moved around us. He sighed, ran a hand over his face, and some part of me marveled in the normalcy, the carefree implications of such a movement.

"Understand that no matter how strong you are, no matter how competent, I will always want to help you."

Well, shit.

Stuff like that is sort of kills anger flat. I stood firm for a second, but melted. Friends help friends. Itachi's help Sakura's.

"Well," I said, sidling closer, until the fabric of his cloak brushed my arm, a silent truce, "you should at least let me land the final blow."

He smiled down at me, cautious.

"From now on."

I smiled back, but then sobered. "And you have to promise… You have to promise to never think of as a burden. You can never act as if… As if you are obligated. You're not. Got that? You will never need to save me, I can take care of myself, so don't go thinking else wise."

He stared at me, just as serious. He understood, I think, because he nodded once, slowly. "I promise."

* * *

That night, I shuffled closer to him where he sat near the fire. I poked him in the leg, face somber. "I'm sorry I was rude, earlier," I said.

The skin around his eyes softened and his shoulders bobbed. "I am sorry I interfered with your battle."

I twisted my lips, looked down at my feet. The thoughts I had been carrying in my chest ever since he appeared back in the clearing were warring against my tongue, and I couldn't get them out coherently. I felt foolish, young, awkward. I felt melancholy, cautious, scared because I knew I was treading on dangerous territory. I cast a glance at Itachi, sitting so close, attentive, waiting for me to speak, and wondered if I were about to break the trust we had spent weeks building up.

But then he cocked his head, raised his eyebrows in expectation, and he looked so human, so normal, so… so _my_ Itachi that I managed to get those stubborn words to form.

"Sasuke used to fight for me, before."

He froze. I watched his Adam's apple bob and the way the muscles in his jaw tightened. I had found a new line to cross, the most dangerous one yet.

"You were his teammate," he said, voice quiet and serious, all trace of humor and familiarity gone. "I imagine he cared for you."

I fidgeted, but held onto my thin string of courage. "He always thought I was a burden, when we were younger. I was… I was weaker. I was stupid. And he – " I swallowed, sat on my shaking hands. "He left at night, you know. He left and I tried to stop him." I laughed, and knew the sound was bitter. "Obviously, it didn't work."

Another long pause. Then: "You are certainly not weak anymore."

"I try. I try every second of every day." I kicked a twig and chewed on the inside of my cheek. This was horrible, but I had to know, I needed to understand. "That's part of the reason I hated you so much. Because of Sasuke. Because he left me."

"I never meant for him to abandon Kohona."

"Then why? What _did_ you want him to do?"

Itachi shook his head. He opened his mouth, but it was a few seconds before he actually spoke. "I don't know. I never – I never planned it, I never thought. I just… I just couldn't kill him. And then, I couldn't let him find out, I couldn't let him know the truth, because – " He turned to me, suddenly, eyes no longer of the flames but on me, and his face had gotten oddly desperate. "Sasuke is not like me. He is more. He is better. He loves and trusts where I do not. It matters to him: the structure of the world, the truth of his home; of his beliefs. To find everything a lie would ruin him, break him, kill all the goodness in him with pain. That is why I ran, that is why I torment him, why I am waiting. He needs to be dark enough to kill me, but not so dark as to destroy himself."

I stood up.

I stomped to stand in front of Itachi and stuck my pointer finger in his face.

"You. Are. An. _Idiot._" I was angry. I was _so, so _angry. I poked him the forehead and then grabbed at my own hair, fisting it between my fingers, so furious that I could feel my chakra automatically gathering for a monstrous punch. He looked a little shocked, eyebrows raised, leaning back a little in his seat.

"_God_." I turned a circle, paced, lost myself in a storm of emotion, thoughts, and a crushing sense of helplessness. Itachi's calm voice interrupted me.

"There is no other way."

"That's bullshit," I snapped. Stupid angry tears were gathering in my eyes and the back of my throat hurt.

"I do not mean to upset you. I thought you understood."

That gave me pause. "Thought I understood _what_, exactly?"

"That I intend to be killed by Sasuke."

I laughed, sharp and cruel. "Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how _stupid_ you sound?"

"It is the only way Sasuke will know peace. He hates me, and rightfully so. He hates me and he will not stop until he sees me punished. It is the only way you will ever be able to bring him home."

Oh, the bastard. He knew me. He knew my weaknesses, understood my motivations. He was trying to appeal to the Sakura he knew or had guessed I was – the one that loved Sasuke and served Kohona unconditionally, the one that lived on the word of her masters, that feared what was foreign and loved what was known. Too bad for him, that was not the Sakura of the moment, because I am not so ignorant as to remain stagnant when the world shifts.

"You want to make him a _murderer_." My voice cracked. "It doesn't work out so well for you, does it?"

"That does not matter."

"Of course it does."

He shook his head, and the downwards turn of his mouth was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. "No, it does not. My death will not matter, because I love him."

For the second time that day, my anger was killed flat. In its place was left a horrible, dark sensation of desperation and, oddly, biting loss. No matter how convoluted his logic, no matter how twisted his plan, the emotion behind Itachi's eyes when he said those words was nothing less than perfect adoration. He was not lying: he loved Sasuke, and dying by his hands was the only way he could see to save his little brother.

"This sucks," I told him, voice calm in a dead way. Then, stepping closer, mulish and hurt, "_You _suck."

I sat down again. I leaned the side of my head against his shoulder and scowled. "Just you wait – I'm going to show you just how stupid your plan is." What I meant was, "I am not going to let you go through with your moronic masochistic suicide plan."

He didn't reply for a long time.

"Sakura."

I hummed in response.

"I need you to promise me something." He was back to looking into the fire, a line between his eyebrows.

"What?"

"I need you to promise me that you will never… That you will never help me. That you will never save me."

I am not stupid. I was not stupid then. I turned to look up at him, at my mothering martyr not-monster, and knew that he was trying to make me promise something that went much deeper than battles and backups and_ I've got your back_. And I cared for him, even then, cared for him in a deep, real way that had everything to do with trust and faith and nothing to do with lust or lies.

"Not a chance," I told him. "That's bullshit." I kicked a pebble, got tongue-tied on all the things I wanted to say, awkward because for all my moments I am only a child. Finally: "You help me and I help you. And I am going to try to convince you that letting your brother kill you is the worst idea you've ever had, ok? That's how this works."

"But – "

"Shut up," I said. I pushed far enough away to plant a foot against his thigh and get enough traction to kick him off the log. And, by God, is actually worked. He slid off and plopped to the ground in an undignified head. For a second, we just stared at each other with wide eyes and slightly open mouths. Then I started giggling madly.

Itachi opened his mouth again, probably to say something depressing and fatalistic, but thought better of it. He closed it and shook his head, the action fond and full of something deeper than affection.


	10. chapter eight: come into my parlor

**note:** I have never written Akatsuki before. They are difficult. Itachi is also getting harder, because I get all paranoid and worried because I can never tell if I'm actually getting in character or just putting him in my version of in-character. And so I whine, whine, whine.

* * *

_chapter eight: come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly_

_

* * *

_

"Tell me about Naruto," he said.

"Naruto?" I echoed, head swinging around to cock at Itachi, confused and off-balanced. My voice sounded strange to my ears – tight and thin, hard and brittle. Breathy. I was trying not to avoid it, inwardly chanting, _they will not recognize me, they will not kill me, I will not panic and attack, I will not panic and attack, I _will not _panic – _but the fear remained, wrapping itself around my chest, tightening with every step I took.

"Hey," I demanded of Itachi, stopping short. I fluttered my fingers over my hair. "It's still brown, right? And you absolutely positively cannot tell how much chakra I'm using to keep it that way?" I pressed down on my already ridiculously smothered chakra, felt the nervous thrum in my muscles and had to forcibly keep from biting my lip. "Right? _Right?_"

Itachi poked my forehead, smiled – not in amusement, not patronizingly; he smiled like he always smiled, like by just standing in front of him being Sakura, I was the most fabulous thing to ever grace the earth.

"Right."

And even if a nervous, skittering part of me didn't believe him, I trusted the light in that smile. I took a deep breath. "Ok. Ok. We can keep going now."

His touched my arm. I looked at him, and he was this big black and red bundle of comfort and understanding. Have I told you how mothering he is? I swear. In between being infuriating, it's fabulous. "Tell me about Naruto," he repeated.

"Right," I gathered my bubbling, jumping thoughts. "Naruto."

"He is your best friend, correct?"

I considered. I hummed. I considered some more. "Well… I guess. One of them." Then I smiled, because Naruto was grinning in my mind's eye, all orange and sunshine and idiocy and brilliance and _mine._ "I love him."

"Tell me why."

I imagined Naruto slurping ramen. I imagined Naruto leaping for joy. I imagined Naruto rubbing his head and grinning as he slurred, "Sakura-chaaaaan."

For the remainder of our short journey, Naruto kept the shadows at bay. Which, as I explained to Itachi, all grins and sweeping hand motions, was his most fabulous quality after all.

Listen:

There is magic in being understood.

* * *

Suffice it to say that meeting the Akatsuki was just about as pleasant as you can imagine.

Of course, their lair (and it was a _lair_, by God, with all the dark, oozing creepiness that such a title implies), was underground. It was shadowed, and dank, and smelled like molding, creeping things I didn't want to think about.

It was, of course, not easy to get into. There were traps, alerts, and as I followed directly behind Itachi, I kept catching the echoes of chakra-powered alarms fizzling out to Itachi's presence. He knew what he was doing, and as we continued, he was becoming more and more distant, closed, that mask slipping down over everything that didn't belong here, where the air reeked of hate and murder. By then, it was night, and the faded grey light of the stars and moon made everything more surreal, made our journey like a descent to Hell.

Then we were inside, and Itachi was standing dead still.

"Zetsu," he said to the darkness.

And just like that, a man appeared from the shadows. Or two men. A man. A man split down the middle, half pitch and half ivory, some horrible plant growing from and over and around him. I did not scream, I did not jump, I did not faint. I bit the insides of my cheeks and flexed the muscles of my calves.

"Well, well, Uchiha. Finally decided to show up, did you?" It was a nasty, dry, slithering voice, and I knew the dark half was talking. Some crazy split personality, I remembered, mind flashing to a homebound night beneath my bright lamp, looking through profiles.

"Where is Pain?"

"Who's this? Not like you to bring little girls around." Zetsu's odd, mismatched, bright eyes were focused on me, and in the second sentence, his voice had shifted, relaxed, and I realized I was seeing the other half. I refocused my efforts on making sure he would not realize who I was, what I was capable of. I let my face show my honest fear and then some, visibly shrinking back from him, whimpering softly.

"Where is Pain?" Itachi repeated, voice like the steel of a sword, edged in threatening impatience.

The man was leering at me, still, but he nodded to Itachi. "Follow me."

* * *

Itachi disappeared into a room that apparently held Pain, the freak leader with piercings and eyes like infinity on steroids.

I was standing outside that room with madman Zetsu.

Itachi hadn't said anything before he disappeared, hadn't threatened Zetsu or reassured me, but still, the one-or-more man held back. He was watching me, curious and bemused, a smirk on that double face, terrifying because he was Akatsuki and he was too close, too dangerous.

"Why are with Uchiha?"

I remembered what Itachi had said, earlier, beneath the sun, not meeting my eyes and speaking softly. "I – I don't know," I stammered, playing up my fear, hiding my growing urge to crumple his ugly, sneering face behind a façade of incompetence. "I… I…" I let the blush burn hot, fidgeted. "I _amuse_ him, I suppose."

He looked me over carefully. Then, he rolled his eyes. And the dry voice muttered something about impossible motives, to which the voiced that rolled over words easily said, "What a freak."

It was wild, the interaction between one side and the next, the implication of duel personalities running deeper than mental illness. Beneath all my trepidation, I was fascinated.

But then there was a hand fisting in the hair at the base of my head, pulling until my neck arched hard, and everything but shock was gone. By some miracle, I controlled every instinct born of years of training and only uttered a screaming gasp.

"Who the fuck is this?"

Then the hand was gone, I was on the floor, and there were two newcomers. The one with white hair was frowning at me, the expression much more sinister than it ought to be. The other was a huge man, blue-skinned and gilled, mouth hard and straight.

_Kisame,_ I thought. Itachi's partner. I almost pulled a strand of hair around to check its color, and ducked my head, hoping to shadow my face.

"Uchiha brought her," said Zetsu.

Kisame hummed in surprise, the noise more a growl, and stepped forward. But the white-haired man was faster.

"What? Why would he bring a bitch here?" He kicked out towards me, but I avoided the blow with a quick scoot backwards. "Hey, you. Bitch. Who the fuck are you?" There were three pairs of bright eyes on me.

Do you want to know something about the Akatsuki? They are terrifying. Want to know why? Because they are mad. They are insane. They are wild, and unhinged, and all their deadliness comes from their ability to be less than human, more than cruel. I saw it, then. I felt it, too, in the way their chakra was pulsing, crawling around inside of them, twisting and writhing and almost hissing, almost snarling. All of a sudden, everything I had been pretending not to feel – all the fear, the anger, the sense of lurking betrayal and disbelief that I was actually _here_, with _them_, alone in a tiny hallway down under ground, far away from home, three men like the dark things in children's dreams crowding around me – hit me, and I realized how much I hated that I was there. And if Itachi's hadn't suddenly been there, saying their names and ignoring me, I don't know what they would have tried to do. I don't know what I would have done, either.

"We are going," Itachi said, looking over his shoulder, face severe in an absent, uncaring way. There was nothing in it to read, no hint at tenderness, but that was the outside, that was fake, that didn't matter because trust runs deeper than hell-hole lairs deep beneath the earth. He started walking, brushing past his once-again quiet peers, who despite their silence were still watching me like curious predators. His steps were long, fast, even. I remember realizing, hurrying past the hands some part of me thought would reach out and grab, that his steps were never this long before, that he had been adjusting for me all this time.

* * *

Itachi led me down a long hall. I kept close behind, clutching the black of his cloak between my thumb and pointer finger, trying to keep my jaw squared but unable to keep myself from skittering around the long, deep shadows that stretched between the dim lights. I focused on my breathing, on keeping it steady and even. In-out-in-out.

We came to a door and Itachi waited until I was inside a dark little room before locking us in with a tinny click. Then, he went to a corner and pulled out a dirty, thin futon. Silently, he unfolded it. He looked up at me, where I stood by the door, still and wide-eyed, and gestured with his eyebrows before retreating to the opposite wall. He sat down without a word, back against the smooth wood.

I didn't move. Then, quietly, Itachi said, voice back to normal, soft and slow and sweet, "I'm sorry."

I grabbed the futon and dragged it over to place beside him. My fingers were shaking. Without preamble, I flopped down next to him, knees to my chest, arms holding myself together, our shoulders and hips touching. He didn't move away. Slowly, hesitatingly, he patted my shoulder twice.

"I'm tired," I told him, wrinkling my nose and trying to hide a huge yawn. The adrenaline was wearing off, the fear simmering down into a jumpy creeping feeling in my stomach – in the aftermath my head felt full and fussy. My eyelids were heavy. My heart was still pit-pattering, and my palms felt wet. I was sleepy and scared and nervous and _whiny_. "I'm tired and I want to sleep. I'm tired and –" Horrifyingly, I felt my throat close up, the backs of my eyes burn, my lips wobble. Dear God, I was going to cry. "I don't like them," I finished lamely, voice not as strong as I would have liked but not quite breaking either.

Itachi's hand was on the top of my head, fingers curling in a gesture that was half reassuring and half another thing, something deeper, something that was more than comfort but similar, that made my tight tummy warm. He wasn't looking at me, but out, into the hall, at things I could not see and sensed I did not want to. Then he did look at me. "Do not be afraid. No one will hurt you."

All around me, I could sense burning, bright, dangerous chakra signatures. All around me, murderers slept and breathed and gathered. I was picturing their faces, close and terrible, as they were in the few seconds before Itachi's broad shoulders came between them and me. My stomach twisted. But right there, right in front of me, was Itachi (my murderer, my martyr, my little liar with a history deeper than the velvet black of space). And in his face, I could see a million little truths, a million little promises: When he said, 'No one will hurt you,' he meant, _I will protect you_ _from everything forever and ever I swear. _

This time, I didn't protest it. It didn't occur to me to chastise him, to remind him that I had handled myself fine. This time, I could not read into his words any deeper that I could the look in his eyes, the one that was not tainted by burden, not hindered by contempt, not clouded by pity. All I could see was loyalty and love. You cannot begrudge anyone for that. I pushed myself closer and sunk into my thin futon.

"Good night," I said.

"Good night." His fingers brushed hair out my eyes, fingers lingering behind my ear.

My back to the warm length of his legs, I slept.

* * *

Are you listening?


	11. chapter nine: heart in hand

**note:** OH DANG. This is happening. Quickest update in the history of the world. This is the result of nice reviews that make me want to work for more. I love everyone who supports this story. Hardcore. When I went go wishy-washy to-continue-or-not-to-continue, you save the day, my friends.

Also: Because some of you were wondering, title from chapter eight it from Mary Howit's poem, 'The Spider and the Fly.' Apparently, though, the actually line is 'will you _walk_ into my parlor, said the spider to the fly' Oops. It's one of those poems I have always just carried around in my brain.

* * *

_chapter nine: heart in hand_

* * *

We stayed two days and three nights.

I stayed in that little room the _whole time. _

Who knew history could repeat itself so freaking fast? It was right back to the beginning: Sakura in a little box because she is too weak for anything else, scared and angry and slowly going crazy, only ever intruded upon by towering, food-bearing Itachi.

There was one big difference, this time around. The biggest difference in the world.

Before, I had been terrified every single time Itachi showed his pale, serious face. Now, the second I sensed him disengaging from the tangle of wild, evil chakra signatures, happiness bloomed in my chest and filled me up with a wild concoction of relief, excitement, and this other thing that ached like affection and burned like adoration. It was sort of the perfect situation for intense, accelerated bonding, because after spending hours wallowing in the reality of my situation, his return mattered that much more, and – and – I don't know. It just mattered. _He_ just mattered.

* * *

"You are alright," he said, the afternoon after we arrived, as he stepped into the room and sat a bundle of food on the ground. I bounded over, that unrestrained joy clearing the darkness of my morning. When he put his hands on my shoulders and ducked his face down to my level, I put my hands on his wrists and stuck my tongue out.

"Of course." I bopped my head back and forth, my ears just barely grazing his knuckles. I was over-exuberant, and we both knew it, but it was easier to counteract despair with troves of enthusiasm than to wallow in it.

Itachi smiled at me.

I think it got to him, too, the dark pressure of that place. Because when he returned, at what I assumed - those windowless caverns made it hard to be certain -was night, he was even softer beneath the hard shell. It was in the way he smiled small, stood close, spoke in low, lilting tones. To him, I mattered. I mattered more every day.

* * *

I was curled up on my side, Itachi's leg against my back, holding his hand in front of my face, inspecting it.

"Someone got angry today, didn't they?" I asked. I put one of my palms to his, looked at the difference in the sizes.

"Yes," Itachi said.

"I felt it. It felt like an explosion of murder." I let a little strand of chakra run through my fingers, bright and fine, buzz against his skin. His fingers twitched. I smiled. "You're ticklish."

"Hidan was angry. And I am not."

"Your ring finger is freakishly long," I told him. "It's almost as long as your middle finger."

He squinted down, a line between his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah." I held up his own hand for him to inspect. Then I presented one of mine. "Look – see the difference?"

He looked, still all squinty. I frowned at him. "I bet I could help your eyes."

Itachi dropped his hand back into mine. "No."

"I promise I wouldn't accidentally pop them, or anything."

"Of course not. You'd do worse – you would heal them."

I cracked one of his knuckles, rewarded by the way he jumped and glared down reproachfully. I smiled winningly, but showed enough teeth for it to be threatening. "Masochism is not an attractive quality."

"I believe," he poked at my nose, but I held him back, "you once told me you would die before healing me."

I snapped my teeth teasingly as he kept trying to poke me, giggling a little. "That was before. That doesn't count. I didn't know, then. I didn't know anything. I didn't know about …" He stopped moving and so did I. We looked at each other, and understood.

Itachi did that thing where he sighed long and slow, slumped without moving. "My eyes are a testimony to my deprivation, and I intend to suffer the consequences."

I cracked another knuckle. "That's bullshit." Another. Itachi pulled away. I twisted to pinch him in the side, and he arched away from me. "You know it is."

I flopped back to my futon. I seethed quietly for a few minutes. But the hot anger died out quickly, and I was just sad and sorry.

"The Akatsuki are batshit, by the way," I said, trying to make my voice cheery in the sad silence. "Absolutely mad."

"We are," Itachi agreed.

I rolled to my back, the better to glare, and looked at him seriously. "_They_ are." I reached for his hand again. He gave it to me. "Not you." I put my fist in the center of his palm, unfurled it small, looked at how much longer his fingers were. "You're different than them."

"I try," he admitted, curling his fingers down like claws, long enough to not bend mine back.

"You are." I considered for a second, felt one of those rare moments are awkwardness that melted because this was Itachi. "I mean, you've got this scary cover, sure, but up close you're…." I considered. "You're all fluffy and mothering and careful and kind." I felt his hand stiffen, and played a rhythm on his fingertips, grinning gently. "Your only insanity – apart from wanting to die, of course – is your willingness to put up with me."

Itachi's voice was oddly strained, and his fingertip's were pressing back against mine, despite the size difference. "Your only imperfection is your willingness to put up with me."

I smiled up at him. "Copycat." I clapped our hands together. "Except for the part where you are the best travel buddy of life and putting up with you is about the same as tolerating sunshine and free chocolate."

The smile he gave me was full and burning and for a second, our fingers were laced together. "Thank you," he said.

I blushed hot, all of a sudden, let go of his hand and turned back on my side, facing away, into the dark. "Nothing to thank me for," I mumbled, heart unexpectedly thundering.

"You're wrong," he said, and his fingers were sifting through my hair, tousling gently. Then: "Good night, Sakura."

"Good night, Itachi."

It took me awhile to fall asleep. It took Itachi longer, because he never slept before me.

* * *

Listen:

He is fabulous.

Got that?

He is amazing and wonderful and beautiful and I cannot be blamed.


	12. chapter ten: storming

**confession:** I really didn't want to write this, but then the exciting thing you will find out more about after the chapter found out and I was all, "いきましょうううう！"

* * *

_chapter ten: storming_

* * *

We left while it was still dark. Apparently, Itachi had heard Madara was going to arrive that morning. And that meant that we – or, more specifically, _I_ – could not be there any longer. I was grumpy and tired and stumbling along, too sleepy to even be scared in the predawn grey. But I kept moving, I didn't complain – even my morning self is not so stupid as to want to meet Uchiha Madara in the flesh.

Itachi was also adamant that I not meet him. When he had woken me up that too-early morning, he eyes had been wide and his movements sharp, despite the gentle coaxing of his voice. I still didn't understand how he had known his kinsman was approaching, but as he prodded to my feet, and out the door, it mattered little. I let him wrap his fingers around my wrist and lead me through the mazes of a hell.

It was ridiculous. Really. I get that. I didn't question, didn't wonder, didn't do anything but trust him, follow him, put all the faith in the world in him. But how could I not? Itachi was scared. I saw the fear in the line of his mouth, the set of his jaw and draw of his eyebrows. He had never been scared before. He was scared, and he was scared for me.

_Listen._

* * *

Around noon, I went into a town and grabbed us lunch. We had made good headway, that day, despite the fact we were running on too-few hours rest. When I returned to the outskirts, near a high canyon wall, Itachi was gazing up at the gathering clouds, a line between his eyebrows.

"It is going to rain," he said.

I handed him his food as said, "Meh. I don't know. Maybe tomorrow." He cocked his head, shrugged, thanked me and scooted over, leaving room for me on the large, smooth rock he had settled into. I handed him the change, told him about the old women I had watched stub her toe and cuss like a sailor on my way to the food vendor, and told him no, thank you, I have my own food and really don't need yours too.

I asked him what we were doing next.

His mouth twisted. "There is information I must retrieve. Then we will make our way to Kohona." He cast a furtive glance my way and tried to pretend he hadn't. "I promise it will not take an excessive amount of time. The informant will be just at the meeting place tomorrow."

There was a twinge in my gut to Itachi's words. It was guilt. It was guilt because I was not as upset by the additional time as I should be. I recognized it, recognized the danger it represented, and, after ony a few heartbeats, decided I was not going to think about it anymore.

"Informant?" I squirmed. "Um. Well… does that mean…" Then I squared my jaw, and there was amusement behind Itachi's expectant face. "If you're planning on killing him, I'm not going to let you."

Itachi froze. Then he stared at me. I stared back, keeping all my hopes and fears dammed up tight, reminding myself that this was Uchiha Itachi, that I was Haruno Sakura, that he was Akatsuki, that we were different, that I already knew he was a murder and I didn't care that he killed still because why would it matter to me and –

"I am not going to kill him." He almost sounded like he was stating the obvious.

I could have questioned him on it. I could have clarified the situation, found the _why. _I should have. I didn't, because my voice was lost somewhere in the waves of relief I let myself feel.

* * *

He didn't kill the guy. I watched from a high tree branch. He didn't kill the guy but he scared him. Sometimes, I forgot that he could be scary.

He didn't kill the guy and we headed towards the next meeting point, where Itachi was to deliver the information to another Akatsuki. Despite all logic, I was excited, eager, wishing we would just get there and be done with it. After this final exchange, Itachi would be done, for the time being. When I asked him how this was, why he wouldn't be rejoining Kisame immediately, how he could possibly just take time off to escort me to Kohona, his reply was honest if not informative.

"They permit me my space."

"What does _that_ mean?"

He offered my a quick smirk.

"They fear me."

Sometimes, I forgot how scary he could be. Apparently, I was the exception.

* * *

We were at the meeting place, and my hair was brown, and my palms were wet.

We were at the meeting spot and suddenly, Itachi froze, tensed, looked for all the world like a arrow that had just been strung, deadly potential just ready for the go ahead. I froze too.

"Run," Itachi said. I didn't move, couldn't move, didn't understand. "Madara is coming." He turned, eyes bright, face alive, one hand reaching out to shoo me. "_Sakura. Run._"

I ran. I ran until I couldn't feel Itachi, and then I ran some more. I ran until the sharp edge of my fear had faded, and then I slowed to a jog. I knew I was overdoing it, but – well – Madara is fucking _scary_. I ran because as long as I was running, I didn't have to think about who I was running from, who he was with, the implications and possible consequences of such a meeting. I didn't want to think about my Itachi talking to that man, I didn't want to think about the plans they might be making, the webs Madara might be weaving, the wickedness he could set into motion.

Eventually, I just stopped.

Before long, Itachi came running.

I knew it was him long before I saw him. He knew it was me long before he saw me. When he barreled into sight, he didn't pause before he was right in front of me, hands at my shoulders, at my face, running along my sides without touching. Remember how I said he had been scared, the morning before, whispering , _he's coming_? Well. That was nothing compared to this.

"You're ok," he said, searching my face.

I wanted to laugh, because my chest was constricting and I felt like I had to do something to relieve the pressure. "Yes."

"I didn't think they would send him – I never imagined – It didn't occur to me – Are you sure you are alright?"

Then I did laugh, full and high. "Yes!" I laughed again. "I survived an almost-encounter with one-third the last Uchiha."

He opened his mouth, started to raise a hand.

Thunder made the air shake.

The raindrops started off slow.

Five seconds later, just as we took shelter beneath a small rocky overhand about twenty meters away, it started _pouring_. Over the roaring of the thunder and the pounding rain, Itachi told me, with this look of pride and joy that made me want to throw my fist in the air and cheer, "He had no idea you were anywhere near."

I don't know why that mattered so much to me. I don't know what made that secondshine so brightly. It wasn't a huge deal, just a blip, but everything added up in those few seconds and before I knew it, I was throwing my arms around Itachi in an enthusiastic embrace.

"I'm going to tell you a secret about life," I whispered close to his ear, lacing his fingers with mine as if it I did it all the time. I pulled away, into the rain, and he followed along with me, feet dragging. Within seconds, his long hair was sticking to his face in shiny clumps, and I could feel the cool pitter-patter against my skin. He was glaring at me, the expression made obsolete by the way his lips kept twitching into a smile. A smile. God. Laughing, all full of bubbles like light, I grabbed for his other hand, started twirling in circles, my enthusiasm making up for his lack.

The Akasuki were gone. Madara was gone. The mission was complete. Itachi was smiling in the rain and letting me make him twirl in wild, tipsy circles. Itachi was my Itachi, the Itachi of baby smiles and long ring fingers and hidden expressions that you just had to look for and I suddenly knew that my Itachi was the real Itachi and that that mattered more than any lie he told the world.

I shouted through a giggling grin.

"It's beautiful!"

* * *

We were soaking wet, the rain was still going, and since we couldn't stand under that little overhang all night, our 'shelter' became a rough camp composed of a conveniently shaped tree and two of our largest, thickest, most water-proof blankets. Even then, our little tent was barely big enough for the two of us, and we were forced to lay side by side, shoulders maybe two inches apart, staring at the ominously droopy fabric of our roof.

They were miserable conditions.

"This _sucks_," I said with gusto. I was grinning for sheer joy.

"You seem a little too happy about that."

"I am. I am way too happy about this."

There was a smile in Itachi's voice that I couldn't see for the oppressive dark. "You are impossible."

"That would be you, Itachi. Compared to you, I am a perfectly possible, probable, normal human being."

"This is true." The smile was gone. I jabbed an elbow his way.

"Don't get all depressed on me. _God_. Can't you just appreciate the moment?" I was drunk on the moment, high on the moment, riding the rush of the storm and this insane bubbling tide that seemed to be taking me away. "No pity-parties. Not tonight." I paused, considered, laughed. "Have you ever been to a sleepover?"

"No."

"Well, we're having one. Right now. You and me. We're having a sleepover and that means we have to tell either happy stories, play truth or dare, or tell ghost stories."

His voice was once again amused, happy. "Those are the rules?"

"Those are the rules. But please note that if you tell a ghost story and it scares me, I will be a miserable brat who keeps you up all night making sure there is someone around to confirm that noise is not, in fact, a monster."

"I would not let a monster eat you," he said, as matter-of-fact as anything, serious as you please, absolute in his conviction.

In the dark, he could not see the smile that bloomed up from way down inside me, threatening to split my face with its force. There was a heaviness in my chest, a lightness in my limbs, a feeling of fullness in every cell of my body. When I spoke, I could hear the content rolling from each syllable. "I wouldn't let a monster eat you either, Itachi."

* * *

Are you ready for this?

I loved him.

Only… Only not the way that I might have. It wasn't some wild thing that started with pity and grew to passion. I wasn't… I wasn't like the story where the monster falls in love with the princess because she's just so damn sweet and he's the sexy villain to counteract all her goodness so in the end of course they're in the midst of passionate throes. Or something. That's a story, right? Well, it wasn't ours, because I was a squalling potty-mouthed ninja with a flower-marked history and he was a patricidal madman too cautious to be sexy and too full of love to be a monster and we – we weren't like _that._ We were like friends who knew the difference in one another's smiles; like soldiers in the same foxhole, holding hands and praying; like the family you can get absolutely furious at but still worry about with every other beat of your heart; like strangers passing on the street, casting backwards glances over your shoulder because fate feels like spider webs; like a million other beautiful things that I could ramble about for the rest of my life but I won't because you don't care. Conclusion: throughout the whole damn ordeal, from the wanting to kill him to praying I could save his life, I never… I never had a crush on him?

Oh, sure, every now and then I would catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye and have to remind myself to breathe. He's beautiful, you know. Devastatingly handsome, all sharp, proud features and long pretty hair – I am not _blind_, and I am not _stupid._ I knew he was good looking – he looks like Sasuke, after all, and I did spend a good portion of my childhood crushing hard on that kid. But Itachi could never be like Sasuke, because Itachi was always more dangerous, because an instinctual part of me understood he was not quite unobtainable, farther away even as the lines between him and I started to blur. Thinking those thoughts was never allowed, never something I would let myself do, because of his brother and my home and our history and the stupid list goes on and on and on and _on_.

But it didn't stop me from loving him.

I don't know how to explain it. I guess it's like this: You have a crush on someone because you want them, because you see something in them you would desire to be near you, because you want to possess them and keep them; because they make you feel alive and stoke the simmering flame in your belly. But when you _love_ someone, it is different. You don't want them, because they already have you; you don't lust, because you are full of this steady, kind, patient thing that leaves no room in your stomach for butterflies and knots; you wake up everyday and you don't – you don't think about what they could do for you, just about how you can make the world right by them. And when I looked at Itachi I didn't see his perfect face or his hard muscles, his power or his history. I didn't see my future or my dreams or _my_ anything. I just saw Itachi, as he was, as he could be, and it was the most perfect thing in the world. Does that make sense? Gosh, I don't know. All I know is that what Itachi and I had was no tension-filled fling, no dancing around desire. It was easy and simple and pressure less and it was him taking care of me and me taking care of him and a million little moments that were nothing more than mundane and nothing less than extraordinary.

I loved him, that long wet night beneath our two blankets, our shoulders two inches apart and our voices growing horse as the night became day.

I _loved_ him.

I still love him.

It is beautiful.

* * *

**note: **Friends. Friends. Friends friends friends. _I have fanart._ Seriously. fanfiction(dot)net's very own someonestolmyname created the piece. It's fabulous. The link it on my author's homepage. Can we all just take a second to FLAIL BECAUSE THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING THING EVER, WHOA WOW AWESOME GREAT HELL YES SWEEEEEET?

In other news, I might revive my livejournal, for the express purpose of justifying why I am writing this story the way I am. There is a method to my madness, and I think if I type it all up, it will make more sense in _my_ head too. Yay, nay, um?

Final note: いきましょう = let's go. As in: WHOOT WHOOT LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD! Or, at least, that's how I used it when I lived in Japan. (Always got to throw that one in there when you're not actually Japanese and you are trying to pretend you know the language. )


	13. chapter eleven: promises like prayers

**note:** It's winding down, folks. This is the quiet before the storm, because some things need to be said and some bonds need to be solidified before Stuff happens. Also, funny story, **psalmofsummer**, a wonderful reader, pretty much saw this coming. Props! In related news: _Gosh!_ You guys are so fabulous, you know? Seriously. I've said it before, but for a long time this story was pretty much a pain to write. But you all save the day! Time and time again! Pat yourselves on the back for me, ok?

* * *

_chapter eleven: promises like prayers_

* * *

"You're sick,"I said, sometime between morning and afternoon, still huddled under those blankets, sodden and stuffy, the rain still humming above us. I had just woken up, holding true to the time-honored sleep over tradition of sleeping in far past sunrise. Itachi was hunched over, cross-legged, his knee against my ribs. He was looking at me with groggy eyes. There was feverish blush over his forehead, cheeks, nose. He looked miserable. I might have panicked a little.

In a brief thrashing of arms and elbows and knees and hips, I was sitting up, kneeling at his side, my knees wedged under one of his, my hands on one of his shoulders to keep from toppling. "You're _sick_," I said again, worrying my hands over his face, pressing my palm to his forehead, the back of his neck.

He shrugged, eyes hooded, not even flinching as I pressed my fingers against the lymph nodes beneath his jaw, peered into his eyes, checked his temperature again. "I am fine."

He probably was. It was just a little cold, a touch of the flu – whatever. Once he got up, ate, stretched, he would be fine. The reasonable part of my brain kept telling me this. The other part, the part of Sakura that is not a ninja, that is not a medic, that is not a fighter, that is a friend and a lover and a human, refused to believe this. I have always allowed the unreasonableness when it comes to those I love. Besides, I was so unused to seeing anything like vulnerability in Itachi that even this small weakness was enough to drive my protective nature into high gear. He was groggy and sluggish and he was moving as little as possible and this was not normal: caretaker instincts activate _now._

"You're not fine." I leaned around him and fished for our canteens. I pressed one into his hands. "Drink this. Drink a lot." I tilted the canteen when he only sipped. "What hurts?"

"I am fine. We should be leaving soon and –"

"What hurts?"

He sighed, rubbed his temples, was so human that it broke my heart. "My head."

I could work with that.

A few more banging elbows and tangling limbs later and I had wedged myself into the space directly behind Itachi. He was looking at me over his shoulder with some despairing mixture of curiosity and resignation. "Lay down," I told him, all business, doctor-voice smooth and confident.

It was a testimony to how far we had come that he did so without complaint. I did, however, have to drag his head into my lap, as he had partially curled up in an attempt to not touch me. Still, though, he allowed me without protests. He was stiff, eyes open and glaring at the roof so close above, eyes occasionally rolling back to try to look at me.

When I got the chakra going, though, he relaxed almost immediately.

"It's the ultimate scalp massage," I told him, smiling as his eyelids drooped.

He hummed his agreement. It was a lazy sound, starting in the back of his throat, deep and full – it was a lazy sound, a familiar sound, like hot tea and long mornings curled beneath the covers. It was musical, wonderful, the culmination of smiles and pokes and the simple, implicit trust of sleeping with your back to the once-upon-a-time enemy.

"You know," I said, a little while later, my fingers in the thick hair at his temple, smile light and teasing, "I never would have guessed you ever got sick."

Itachi's eyes were closed, but he smiled slightly. "I am human."

"I never thought you were. I never imagined you could be."

His eyes opened lazily, and I leaned over him so I could see the way they blinked hazily, softly, before focusing on me. "It would have been better if you never considered me to be anything more than a monster."

"Why?"

He narrowed his eyes slightly, considering. As I moved my fingers to the back of his neck, though, were the muscles were hard and knotted, they slid shut. "Because I _am_ little more than a monster."

My chest hurt. "You need to stop saying that. It's not true."

"It is."

The world was damp and chilly and warm and sweet; I was sad and scared and content and full. "I don't think so. I think that you are more than you let yourself realize. I think you are more than I understand." I paused, looked down at the face in my lap, felt the easy _rightness_ of the moment. "I think you need to forgive yourself." He opened his eyes again, bloody irises hardly visible through the tangle of sooty lashes. I smiled down at him. "I forgive you."

"Sakura," he said, and was silent for a long moment. I think he felt it too; the heavy softness of the universe beneath our blankets, the lazy tension, the breathtaking familiarity of such an unfamiliar situation. "I wish it were that simple."

"It could be."

He shook his head, hair fine and silky as it shifted through my fingers. "You know Sasuke. You know what I've done to him."

My fingers tightened against his skull, and I had to force myself to relax. "Yes, I know. I know better than I think you understand." I huffed air out my nose. "Did you know that I loved him? That I thought the sun rose and fell to his whims? Do you realize that after years of thinking he belonged to us, he left without a backwards glance?"

"That is my fault."

"I forgive you," I told him again. "And I forgive Sasuke."

"He needs you, Sakura. He will need you."

"After you have him kill you, you mean?"

The guarded, cautious look was enough.

I wanted to get angry, but I couldn't quite manage it. Instead, there was a deep, painful resentment, not for Itachi but for everything and everyone who had forced him down this path. It was a hate that would burn for years and years to come.

"I don't know if I will want to help him out, anymore." My tone was clipped, but my fingers soft. "Not after he kills you. I will be mad at him. Furious. I will want to bury him beneath a thousand feet of rubble and scream the truth in his face until he regrets ever deciding that you were right about him needing your blood."

"You wouldn't." There was a bright thread of perfect faith in the statement.

I shrugged, that helplessness I always got when we talked about his impending doom falling over me like a familiar blanket. "No. I wouldn't. But I would get mad at him. I would want to hate him. But then I would forgive him, and I would help him, and I would protect him. If he let me. Because…" I traced the whorl of Itachi's ear. "Because I love him. Because you love him. Because Naruto loves him. Because there's not enough love to go around anyway."

Itachi just looked at me, those crimson eyes calculating, considering, awed and thankful. He didn't say anything, because words would be useless, empty. I shrugged against the weight of his stare. I shrugged against the weight of fate, of choice, of destiny and sacrifice. I shrugged and there was a neat little parcel of perfect pain settling in my chest, and desperation was settling into a cold, hard plan in the back of my throat.

"Actually," I said, knowing what I was doing was vile, "maybe I wouldn't be mad at Sasuke after all. I know it's not his fault, not really. Maybe, if he killed you, I would go after someone else instead." My fingers were moving in smooth circles against the knobs on Itachi's skull, exerting too much pressure to shake. "Madara would never know what hit him."

I was not quite surprised when Itachi sat upright in a sudden, whipping motion, hair pulling through my fingers and snagging as he yanked regardless. Now he was the one with the flailing limbs, the knocking knees and elbows. I sat patiently and waited until he had managed to get to his hands and knees, eyes close to mine. "Sakura."

"Itachi."

"You – you _cannot_."

"I can." I stuck my chin out, all bravado and stubbornness. "I _will_."

"_Sakura_." Itachi did this thing where his elbows bent, his neck arched, and he was half-bowing before me as I sat there in that dismal tent. "He will destroy you."

"You would let him destroy you."

"Sakura. Don't. There is no reason, no need, no – no reason."

He was so close. He was right there. He was on his hands and knees and he was begging, eyes wide and scared, because he is like that, way down deep, and he always has been and I knew that, by then. I knew it well enough to try to exploit it.

"How can you say there would be no reason? There is every reason. You will be _dead_, Itachi." I leaned closer, all of a sudden. "You will be _dead_ and Sasuke will be _crushed_ and it will _matter_ to me. It will matter and it will hurt and I will want him punished, don't you see? It _matters_."

"Sakura._ Sakura._"

"Itachi."

He crumbled. He caved. He cracked and his voice was begging when he told me, "You will not go after him. You will not."

"I won't?" I thought I had won. Hope was unfurling wild in my chest.

"You won't. Swear to me."

"Do you swear?"

"_You will not try to kill Uchiha Madara._"

It felt like a promise. It felt like he was the one making the vow. I swear it seemed like an agreement. He was staring at me with a sort of desperation and I thought I had won.

"I swear," I said.

The air was still charged with the warmth of home and family. Itachi's face was still flushed. The rain was still a steady rumble all around us. I settled Itachi back into my lap, and tried to clear the sickness best I could. He fell asleep, eventually, after telling about the substandard care the Akastuki received and how his eyes gave him headaches every time he used their devastating power, after I told him how Naruto would whine for head rubs and how Sasuke never used to let me touch him. Once he was settled into a deep slumber, I braided his hair into long, thick plaits, still uncertain of the future but blissfully convinced it need not include blood, hate, and the grit of murderous lies.

I remember that long, humid day as something of a dream, all foggy and blurred around the edges, stained with bright hope and love. I remember that Itachi slept on and off most of the day, that his eyes were lazy and his mouth soft, that when I too gave into the sleepiness, I simply stretched out to the side. I remember waking up with his head near my belly, his hand near my nose and believing that the battle had been won, that everything would be ok, because our little bubble-beneath-the-rain world was happy, sustained by promises and hope and the way you can see a soul like the sun on the other side of the storm.

It wasn't until days later, his back tall and straight beneath the stars, I realized he never made his vow.


	14. chapter twelve: life is not a paragraph

**note: **Title from E.E. Cumming's poem, 'since feeling is first.' Go read it, and the title will make more sense. It will also make you a better person. Had a minor surgery, and am out of commission for a few days, with lots of free time. My pain, apparently, is your gain. And, yes: The end starts now.

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_chapter twelve: life is not a paragraph_

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_

I knew where we were. The land had become familiar in ways that had little to do with scenery and everything do to with the air and the light and the way the earth felt beneath my feet.

This was home.

The miles faded at our backs and the days rolled over, slow and sticky sweet.

And with every step I took, I was more and more reluctant to continue.

It had been some time since Itachi had been sick. Not much time, but enough. Enough days with enough hours full of nothing but us and the world for the little things to start adding up. Those hours beneath the rain had shifted something, edged our universe of two over some sort of ledge, finally erased every lingering doubt and every half-formed fear into perfect acceptance and divine… divine faith, I think would be the best way to describe it.

It was so _easy_. It was easy to wake up to his voice at my ear; it was easy to know which duties were mine, which his, which ours; it was easy to spend hours telling stories, play-bickering, laughing so hard the tears streamed down my cheeks; it was easy to reach out and touch his arm, to shove him with my hip; it was easy to look at Itachi and see a million little expressions, mannerisms, hopes and dreams I absolutely adored.

It was not easy to forget it would all end too soon.

On a hot day, the light burning and thin, the sun arching high, the world tinted in childhood, I became quiet. My footsteps lagged. I kept looking at Itachi out of the corner of my eye. It felt like a hushed night beneath the stars, his brother at the back of my mind, gearing myself up to cross into foreign territory, anxious but determined because I think I have always known we were meant to be more than strangers.

"What happens when I go back?" I asked him suddenly, finally, looking up to his face, so close, so familiar.

He cast a glance out of the corner of his eye, leaned his weight and gave me a little shove. He was smirking gently. _He _was gentle, still soft in the lingering aftermath of days before, waking up to a cocoon of shared breath and winding conversations. "Well, I suppose you will eat ramen, and your mother will cry, and Naruto will laugh and everyone will want to know how you possibly managed to bend me to your will."

"That's not what I meant," I shoved him, and he shuffled to the side. I think he was humoring me. "I mean…" He looked at me, bemused and beautiful, and when I imagined not being able to see that face everyday, the pain that bloomed in my chest choked me. "What about you? What about – about – " _Us? _

"I will be gone." He was back to stone-faced seriousness.

"Why?" I reached out, pulled on his stupid sleeve, looped my fingers around his wrist, thought about grabbing for his fingers but didn't. "You don't have to. You shouldn't."

"I need to. You know that, Sakura."

"Stop. I do not know that. Itachi. _Itachi. _You promised." I pulled on his wrist once, let my fingers fall, and scooted closer to his side in the absence.

"Sakura." He was giving me that look, closed and sad, and he was done. I was not. I determined and unrelenting and I didn't care about blood-stained histories and years of propaganda and the impossibility of safe returns, because the boy-man child at my side was realer than any of that. New strategy.

"What about me?"

"You will be safe."

"I want to see you."

"It would be too terrible a risk."

"I don't care."

"I do."

"I'll worry about you."

"No, you won't. There will be no need."

I dashed in front of him, put my hands on my hips, stopped flat. "I will. Don't tell me what to think. There will be a need because… Well, because that's what we Sakura's do! You idiot. You _know_ I'll worry about you. Of course I would."

His head tilted to the side, eyebrows soft, mouth neutral, face open and oddly hurt. He reached out, fingers curled, and almost touched me, but didn't. "I never meant for that. You were not supposed to care."

He looked at me, eyes open and honest, and I realized that in these last few days, with him and me and an increasingly inevitable sense of _we_, I was not the only one whose steps slowed, whose eyes carried the weight of hesitation deep inside, whose fingers lingered as if for the ache of pending lack. If I was worried about the imminent separation, Itachi was terrified. I grabbed his hand, squeezed it, thought about his long ring fingers and broad palms, realized we were on some incredible boundary line, teetering on the brink of change like I had never known before. I took a deep breath, felt terror running through me, hot and heady, and then knew that Itachi was worth it anyway. "But I do. And you can't change that. So promise me that I will see you again."

"Oh, Sakura… I cannot." Then he pulled me in with the hand I held, and hugged me like he could feel the world crashing down around us.

* * *

We made camp not too long afterwards. It had been slow going since our unexpected embrace, because Itachi wouldn't let go of my hand. It was making me nervous in ways that have nothing to do with pink hearts in notebooks and everything do to with the way your soul wraps itself around a person and whispers in a voice like prophecy. You see, we never held hands. We never hugged for no apparent reason. We brushed cloaks and patted heads and curled up close to one another; we leaned near, shoulders-hips-thighs touching when we were scared or needy or tired; we breathed the same air and teasingly poked - but this was different. New and strange because in holding my hand, Itachi was more like a five year-old than a man.

Itachi set up his sleeping bag away from mine and went to sit by the fire I had lit.

I followed, knowing I was not the only one who had been getting weaker with every step further into Kohona territory.

He had his head between his hands and his elbows on his knees. The cold perfection of weeks before was gone, and the Itachi before me was obviously very vulnerable, very afraid of some ghost that I was ever-more certain I understood. I knelt before him. "Itachi?"

He shook his head. I grabbed his wrists, pulled until he looked up at me. His eyes met mine and in a blistering second, I understood just how terrified Uchiha Itachi was.

"Tell me."

He shook his head again, the movement oddly jerky, unbalanced. For a moment I actually thought he might cry. But he didn't. Instead, his whole face wavered, rippled, flashed from full and scared to empty and perfect, from the man I knew to the man I had forgotten he ever was. Finally, he whispered, raw and low. "Sakura. I need you to tell me that it will be ok."

"You will be ok," I recited, wary. He shook his head.

"_It_ will be ok."

I scowled. "Everyone is going to be ok."

Itachi smiled like a sob. "You, Sakura, are perfect. Never forget that."

Now I was about to cry. "I would really appreciate it if you would remind me. Daily."

And there it was, written in every line of his crestfallen face. He loved me. He_ loved_ me. It was in the momentary widening of his eyes, the mute gasp, the way I could feel his fingers twitch from my hold on his wrists. It was in everything, everyday, every time, everywhere, every morning, his fingers pushing hair from my eyes and prodding my shoulder, whispering, "Good morning, good morning good morning," like a song but he would never sing. He loved me, and he knew it, and it mattered. I think he almost told me, but something in him broke.

"No matter what happens, know that I am sorry. And that I am impossibly grateful. No matter what I do, no matter what happens. Just –just remember."

He loved me. He loved me and it was killing him. He loved me and I felt like someone had stolen all the breath I had.

"Itachi – " I pulled at his wrists, opened and closed my mouth. He loved me and it mattered and I couldn't get my stupid heart to stop thudding long enough to form a thought. "Itachi – "

"Good night, Sakura."

He meant 'good bye.' I knew it. I could _feel _it. It was so obvious, so undeniable, so painfully real that it took more strength that I knew I had to keep from slamming him eight feet under the ground. It took even more strength to keep from falling to my knees and begging him to stay. Fucking bastard asshole _liar._ Instead, I nodded, smiled my own lie, and prayed to every star in the sky that I might be wrong.

I pretended to go to sleep. I am not a ninja for nothing. And even the infamous, the perfect, the deadly Itachi was fooled by my even breaths and calm, tidal chakra.

He stood over me and whispered something I couldn't quite hear.

Then, in the middle of the gray night, he left.

I rolled over, stood up, and followed.

Fucking Uchihas.


	15. chapter thirteen: our lost kingdoms

**note: **Title from T.S. Elliot's "The Hollow Men." Obviously, I have an issue with titicular originality. And don't get too upset, ok? It hurts me too. Especially since so many of you said lovely things to me (I have not had time to respond to review, and I am sorry, and I love you all) and I might be getting more fanart and shouldn't that deserve happy endings and rainbows? It should. But. You know. You can't win them all.

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_chapter thirteen: our lost kingdoms_

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He heard me coming, of course. I was stomping and cursing and probably hyperventilating by that point. Plus, I was screaming his name like a banshee. But he just kept walking, each step fluid and exact, one foot in front of the other, marching merrily to his doom. When I got closer, though, he spoke without turning his head.

"Go back, Sakura."

"What are you doing? Why are you doing this?"I was fumbling, hysteric, shouting at his back with a tight, skittering feeling way down deep in my belly, horror and fear and denial rushing through my veins. It made me giddy, jumpy_, angry as all hell_. Any chance of me being logical, or compassionate, or anything resembling reasonable had disappeared the moment I realized he would have left me. "You bastard! You asshole! You stupid moron! You lying piece of shit! This is ridiculous. This is _stupid._" I stomped after him, and there was this flash of wild déjà vu. For a second, the memories overpowered me: a warm night on a familiar bridge, horrible and hated, because that one had got away and it this one did the same… But then determination burned away the hesitation and I was reaching out to grab his ugly black cloak.

He stopped, and that threw me. I was struck dumb, speechless as a thousand thoughts rolled over the stalled cogs of my mind. When my mouth finally started moving, I was hardly coherent.

"You can't do this. Itachi. _Itachi. _You can't."

Still facing away from me, into the dark of night, he shook his head. His ponytail swayed and I had this wild urge to reach out and yank it hard, to wrap it around my wrist and tie it to my heart, fashion a neat little bow and use it to keep him here, to keep all the dark reality away forever and ever and ever and –

"I must."

"You _promised._"

"You promised, Sakura, and you assumed I did, but–"

"You _bastard_. You fucking asshole –"

"Sakura."

His voice was determined. He still wouldn't look at me. It felt like I was talking to a stranger or a stone wall. It hurt. It hurt and he was going to get hurt and I was hurt and the world was hurt and all that pain undid something in me. Before I had time to think about what I was about to say, the words were tumbling over my shaking lips.

"What about me? What about – what about us? You're acting like – like I don't know, like I don't understand. You're acting like you believe your own lies, like you actually deserve this and no one will never know anything better and how the fuck could you want that for yourself and – and – " There was a selfish sting in my throat, a vindictive fire in my twisted belly. "What about every damn minute of every damn day ever since you picked up a dying heap of pink hair in a forest full of Sound? Didn't it make a difference? Didn't it change anything? God – oh God –_ Itachi _– what about me?" I wanted to hate him, in that moment, but when I say hate, I really just mean that every other thing I felt for him was burning up inside me, hot and horrible, and I wanted him to feel it, too, in some small part. When they say that love is painful, that it hurts and aches and that you bleed for it, they are not lying.

"Itachi," I said, once more and soft, like a silly little girl, that same silly little girl I had spent years trying to convince everyone I wasn't, but who I was, in flashes and moments, because everyone is and this was _Itachi_ and this was the most important person ever leaving me. "Itachi. Didn't I change anything?" _Because it made a difference to me, made the biggest difference anything could ever make in the whole entire history of the world and my heart's beating double time, just for you just now._

And then he was turning, finally, looking at me, and what I saw made my belly drop and my throat close. Itachi was crying. "Sakura," he said, voice steady but thin enough that I thought I could reach out and snap it. Red and wet, spilling over and leaking down the planes of his cheek, his eyes were bloody holes to Hell. "Sakura."

That did me in. The hot rage and frantic fear settled into a crushing sadness I had been avoiding until that definitive second, replacing everything else with a terrible, aching, breaking affection. One look at Itachi's crumbling face, and I was crying like I never had before.

His hands were suddenly around my upper arms, pulling me into him, his face inches away and like a river in the rain - wild and breaking in a million pieces, never quiet and never still. My Itachi is a thing of wonders, you know. He is a boy child manslayer with swirling eyes of betrayal and hell, and he helps little girls dying on the forest floor, and he cries like it matters.

"Of course you made a difference," he said, fingers tight, voice raspy. His hands were off my arms and on my face, then, broad fingertips smoothing away the tears I was going to drown in with shaking determination. "You foolish, indomitable, wonderful girl. Of course you changed everything, You tilted the world on its side, you… Sakura: brave, brilliant, beautiful Sakura - you did everything. You saved me – "

_Saved you? Saved you from what? And here you go to die willingly, you great big noble misguided idiot. _But I couldn't talk because my throat was swelling up something hot and breathtakingly sad.

"- You saved me and… It used to be blank, there used be nothing – _I _used to be nothing – the world used to be this empty _thing_, just days that rolled over and over into infinity, dragging me along but never – never _mattering_. But then – oh, Sakura –" he smiled to my name, somehow, even as tears continued to track down his face "- then you came along, broken and dying and angry, alive and passionate and everything I always wished I could be, to wake me up and paint the world in shades of sunrise. And I swear to you, that _matters_. That matters more than you could ever know."

What do you say to that? I couldn't think of a thing. Instead, I broke into a fresh round of tears, my sobs deep and full, starting way down in my soul. My arms went around his ribcage, my head found a hollow against his neck, and I tried my damnest to sink him to him. To disappear beneath the folds of his black robes, to flow into his skin, into his muscles and his blood, to stay with him, keep him near and dear forever and ever and ever amen. I was hysteric, fumbling, and affectionate in a way that hurt with every short, hiccupping sob.

"You can't leave," I told him finally. "You can't die. You can't."

"I have to," he said, voice not-so steady, wavering, lost, but determined and oh, God, I knew him by then, and I knew that tone, and he was going to go and no amount of pleading could stop him. I wanted to punch him in the face for being so stupid, but I only managed a deep, shuddering sob.

"You asshole," I said finally, wet and mean, my cheek against his neck, damp and sticky from our combined tears. "You go and tell me – tell me something like that, something more freaking beautiful that anyone has ever said before and then.. then…" My lip wobbled and I was crying again.

We were nose to nose, suddenly, because he'd somehow managed to take my trembling face between his two hands. He was still crying, but it was in that silent, dignified, tears-only way that was so completely opposite my loud squalls. I did not want to look him in the eye but he gave me no choice. There was a tight, hot band wrapping itself around my lungs, binding my breath and coating everything with a layer of desperation. My fingers fisted into the fabric at his back and I wondered how long I could forcibly keep him. Not long enough. Never long enough.

"You made me brave enough," he said, softer than I was used to, voice deeper than ever. "You – you are the most wonderful, the very best thing that has ever happened to me, the strongest person in the world and you - you made me strong enough, too. I need to do this, Sakura, and I never could before you." He tried to smile, just for me, the idiot, but it broke. He leaned his forehead to mine, the tip of his nose at my cheek, and I could feel the hot, damp puff of his breath. Itachi and Sakura, breaking in symphony, holding on for dear lifedeath: Even in the middle of the horror, I recognized the wonder of that moment, the simple symmetry and him and me and we, the fucking perfection of _us._ Life is the cruelest joke to ever be played.

"Why don't you just tell him?" My whisper was so raw it burned. I was begging, pleading a useless case. I pushed my nose forward, a small attack more like a nuzzle. _Stay with me._ "I can do it. I can. I will. I will. I will _make_ him listen; I'll make them all listen, every single one. Why don't – "

"Please. Please Sakura."

I won't pretend it made any sense. I won't pretend that I am not ashamed of it. It was stupid, cowardly, but you were not there. You didn't hear the desperation in his voice, the need, the pain and sorrow beyond anything I had never heard before. I didn't want to, but I had to because I loved him and I guess it's true that love is as stupid as it is blind.

"I'll miss you," I sobbed, and it was the most horrible, the most selfless, the most idiotic moment of my life. "I'll miss you _bad._" And I would. I would miss him at night when the shadows took form, and I would miss him in the day, when the sunshine begged for company; I would miss him in oppressing silence, and in crowded streets with no safe base; I would miss him forever, for everything, for every day and every second. I glared at him, all wobbly lips and quivering eyes, red and puffy and ugly as all hell, snapped like a stick over the universe's knee. Please try to understand how – how horrible, how broken, how awful the whole entire world was at that moment; how much it felt like a nightmare, how hard I was fighting to keep a crushing black weight from swallowing me whole. I could feel my soul breaking, shattering, ripping me up from the inside out, too mangled for me to believe I would ever feel whole again. It felt like a death I had always imagined, like damnation. I knew, then, that this was a hurt that would never go away, that could never be healed, that would haunt my days as long as I lingered.

"You will be too busy taking care of Sasuke to miss me." He paused, stared into my tear-streaked, broken face as if he were looking into a window to heaven. "You will take care of him, won't you?"

I nodded, ran the back of my fist across my eyes. "Of course. I promise." I tried to smile but it became a sob. "And I won't even let him try to go after fucking Madara. _I _won't even go after fucking Madara." I poked at his ribs with a shaking finger, trying to be brave for the fear in his face. "Just for you, even though you're a liar."

You know what Itachi did?

He smiled. He smiled like a broken man given hope, a slave given freedom. He smiled like an Itachi was always meant to smile at a Sakura. He smiled – defeated, grateful, anguished, overjoyed, terrified and brave. I couldn't help it: I smiled back, a liar.

"I love you, Haruno Sakura," he said, tremulous but somehow fierce. "I swear I do."

Then he kissed me. And it was nothing like the books used to tell me about, because this wasn't the kiss of happily-ever-afters. This was something else, something born of heartbreak and despair, of finality and desperation; not a beginning but an end. It was his lips on mine, his mouth hot and wet, and it was a last chance, a final farewell, and where there was no hope there was aching sentimentality. I was saying goodbye and he was saying something I cannot put into words, but that filled up my ribcage and flowed to fingertips in waves of warmth. I remember the feeling of drowning, of my head being heavy and stuffy from crying, of shooting pain because my fingers were fisted too tightly in his cloak.

I remember that when our mouths separated just a second's space, he whispered thank you against my lips.

I do not remember his fingers pushing into the back of my neck.

* * *

**endnote: **Please take a moment to send a prayer or happy universe-vibe to all the poor people in Japan. They've had a horrible day, and need all the good luck they can get.


	16. chapter fourteen: when all else

_chapter fourteen: when all else has fallen_

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_

I guess he knew me by then, better than I even knew myself.

Because the moment I came to - warm beneath the blankets, safe in our camp, tucked in and shoeless because even when he's being a bastard Itachi remembers to take care of me, alone alone alone– I changed my mind. Screw letting him go, screw goodbyes, screw watching the world spin by in passive compliance as it threw its worst my way. Three seconds after my eyes opened, and I was stumbling in the direction Itachi had been going, pausing only to force my feet back into my boots, angry and terrified. The sun not yet up, the world was a hazy, washed out grey, but there were traces of a building dawn to the east. Three hours, I guessed. He had a three hours head start.

But then I stopped, for a second, one boot one and the other caught around my ankle, and tried to be reasonable. I tried to evaluate the situation, chart of a course of action, think of a logical endpoint and the best way to reach it. For a few hard heartbeats, I reminded myself that this what he wanted to do, that this was what he needed, that holding on was useless and that I should just let go. If I just turned around and started walking, I would be home by the time the sun hung in the sky. I would be home, I would be taken care of, my mother would cry and Naruto would laugh and I would eat ramen. Everyone would be happy to see me and the world would slowly shift back to the way it had always been, way back before aching red eyes and long ring fingers.

I could have turned around, except… I couldn't, I couldn't _I couldn't_. The thought made each cell in my body shrivel up in pain and every second spent in thought was a second in which I was at a stand-still, immobile as the distance between everything that mattered and myself grew. There was an invisible string and it was stretching, pulling, drawing me in with a death grip on my heart. I've told you that I loved him, and love was never meant to wait on the sidelines. Love was never meant to give up. Took me too long to realize it, but here I was, finally pulling that second boot on, having my late epiphany. So I didn't think, I didn't plan, I just gave in to the pulsing throb and _ran_.

There is something telling, perhaps, to running towards a missing-nin with the only village you've ever served at your back.

I was praying to every God I'd ever heard of, pleading assistance from every ancestor I knew. They were desperate, wild prayers, offerings and promises thrown towards the heavens in time with my puffing, tight breath. All went something like _please please please I swear to you I'll do anything just make it better please please _**don't let him die**_. _

Even now, when I think back to that clear morning, my stomach twists. At the time, I was so scared that I guess – I guess the world just stopped. There was nothing left in the universe. Just me and my thoughts and an aching sense of absence as the miles fell away to a still-absent Itachi. My heart was going a million miles and hour, and I remember the twitchy, shaky feeling that made my fingers numb and every sound too loud. Adrenaline made me wild, and I ran like a leaf scattered in the wind – fast and erratic and it's a wonder I made it anywhere at all. And I was _so_ scared.

What in your life do you fear most? Picture it. Imagine the terror that curls up in you, that seeps into every cell of your being and makes you sick with worry, that makes you want to cry and hide and _die_. Imagine that, now add what you feel for the most important person in your life – that aching, all-consuming affection, that _I'd die live fight breathe _for you, powerful and raw and present in every beat of your heart. Put the two together. Does that make sense? Can you do it?

It hurt _bad._

It hurt bad enough to fuel my frantic search for hours, through the sun arching high and sinking low, through wide, searching circles and loud, desperate cries that were never answered. As the earth grayed in pre-sunset heat, I had almost given up any hope of finding him. I choked on my fear and knew there aren't enough miracles to go around, anyway, so who was I to petition God for the winning lottery ticket? Defeat felt like a thousand years of darkness and the way the emptiness in your chest echoes when you realize you're dying, every second and every day. I didn't give up, though. _Love never gives up._ I kept running on legs that I couldn't quite feel anymore, breathing through lungs that were tight and tingling. I was searching in a pattern of those wide sweeping circles like they teach you to make, when you're young and you still think about the weight of a kunai in your hand, pushing myself harder than ever, throwing my senses wide, knowing that this was useless, this was hopeless, you can go down swinging but you still go down.

I stopped so suddenly my knees almost gave out.

_There._

I felt it, on the edge of my awareness: A flux of power that boiled and screamed of death; that was as familiar as warmth like love in the bottom of my chest.

It felt like every part of me was crying in relief.

Shocked and numb with suddenly reborn hope, I took two steps towards that faint echo of power most terrible. For a few minutes of icy calm, I waited, fixed on that point like a moth to a flame, standing with baited breath to see if it really was… If it really could be...

Before long, I was certain, and that conviction lent me strength where none should have been.

I ran like I never had before.

_Itachi._

I followed his burning chakra signature.

I followed it and it led me home.

They were fighting, I could tell, even from far off. They were fighting and it was like watching the stars dance, great hot bursts of power like boiling light, colliding and retracting, moving like poetry tumbling and burning too hot, shining too bright. That was when the new wave of fear hit me – the kind that wasn't worried about not finding him, but that was terrified of finding him too late; the kind that mothers wear as they dash towards a flaming home even though the voices shout that it's too late; the kind that makes hard soldiers' souls shatter as the bullets ring and they hear a _thump _behind them; the kind that strips you raw and robs you of every happy thought you ever had. The pain in my chest sharpened, and – and – and they were fighting, fighting like forces of nature, fighting like the things that lives way down deep where the flames lick and the brimstones burn. They were fighting and they were fighting and they wanted to kill one another.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

I finally could see them. They were fighting. Duh. Two tall pale pretty boys, transformed into _things_ of lightening and nightmares and distilled sadness, circling like predators, like monsters, like all the scary dark things that hide in the shadows of your mind, only not like that at all because I don't love ghoulies or ghosties or long legged beasties.

But that's not important.

What is important is that when I say they were fighting, I mean that Sasuke was trying to kill Itachi.

Which made everything that much more horrible.

Oh, Itachi. He was so broken. I could tell, even from my distance. He was broken, staggering, falling apart all the worn-out seams, a mess of blood and shredded clothing and deathly pale skin. There was a scream in my mind making it impossibly hard to think. I realized he was speaking.

"Sasuke," he said, and it was my Itachi that was speaking, not anyone else's. "Sasuke. Listen to me."

"LIAR!" Sasuke looked more than absolutely mad, like a caged beast starved too long of affection and life, like hate spilling bloody, like sadness made tangible. He was ferocious, all power and might and that special brand of invincibility that comes with knowing that the worst has been done and you cannot break any further.

I realized what was happening.

My fault. All my fault. Me and my disillusions, me and my hope, me and my fucking stupid naïveté. Me and my ever-caring mother-martyr-never-monster who listens when he shouldn't and tries to change even in the face of doom.

Sasuke attacked him, faster than anyone should ever be, one final time. He struck, and it was an explosion, a _boom boom_ _bang_ of power. I was standing in the center of a thousand lightening strikes, a forest burning down, the air ash and screams and whistling fate before the deafening silence blanketed everything else. There was nothing I could do but stand still and forget to breathe as the world ended.

Itachi fell, and I found the air to scream.

Sasuke finally seemed to notice me. Too late.

And it wasn't even a choice, not a consideration; it was my heart in my throat and a hot rush of anger wrapping around my chest and I was rushing at Sasuke before I had considered the implications.

He was surprised, I am sure. He was surprised and it worked to my advantage, because he was fast but I was faster still, and he was strong but I was _strong,_ determined in a way I never had been before. His chakra roarded and spat and tried to easy me alive, but I didn't care, I wasn't scared, Itachi was bleeding on in the long grass and Sasuke _would not_ stop me from reaching him. What did I care if his blade nicked me, what did I care if his attacks singed along my skin? He could not make me hurt any worse that I did already. _He could not stop me._

It was glorious, the rush of heady power, the fuel like fire that made everything slow and easy, that made Sasuke's attacks seem like childsplay and when I clapped my hands to his temples and sent in a warm burst of chakra that had his eyes rolling back, it felt – it felt _easy._ It felt simple. It felt as if I had known I would be able to take down Sasuke (Sasuke, who I had once worshipped and adored and feared, in a deep secret way, because he was so much more powerful, wasn't he?), because I had to. Because Itachi was on the line, and Itachi mattered more than a thousand years of grief and the way betrayal lurks in the back of eyes that once trusted you with their life.

And then I was running running running, so fast I flew, so fast the world stopped turning, so fast and not fast enough, because blood was flowing and he was dying and I was burning up, burning out. I crashed to my knees at his side, crashing and burning and I was shaking too much, I was too scared, every secret closet in my heart was rattling, skeletons and monsters threatening to send me spiraling back to a time where I could do nothing.

"_Itachi_," I whimpered, choking on fear like a noose around my neck. Medic until the end, I scanned him, gagged against that razor line of terror. "Itachi… Oh _fuck_. Itachi, I am so so so so so –"

"You were right." His hand came up, tried to squeeze mine, but the grip was like butterfly wings and bird bones. "You were right and I – " his eyes closed and he coughed up blood and death, "I am sorry. I am more s-s-sorry that I… than I have ever been." Tears were leaking out of his red, messy eyes, carving little trails of not-so-bloody down his cheeks. "But I tried. I tried. For you. For me. For us."

"Oh, Itachi. Oh, Itachi." It took a couple of seconds to think past the way he was paling before my eyes. _Dying_ before my eyes. I smoothed away the tears - even though my vision swam as I cried - tried to wipe away the blood with trembling fingers. "I know I was right," I said, but the words were breathy and half-garbled from the contained despair, sharps shards of my breaking heart cutting up the words into ugly, bloody ribbons. "You can spend the rest of your life not questioning my judgment, thank you so much." I leaned over him, hands glowing, feeling the damage with a sense of increasing helplessness that wasn't really helplessness, because it didn't matter the odds, not this time. _Not this time._ And, _oh_, my heart was breaking, aching, cutting into me like a million little slivers of glass and hate and the way someone smiles when they love you more than words could ever tell.

"Sakura," he said, weak and breathy, death on every syllable. "Sakura. Stop." His heart shuddered beneath my hand, weak, fast, throbbing and oh, _oh_, his insides were like jelly, mashed and smashed, broken and bleeding. "It's no use. Heal yourself. Heal Sasuke. It's no – "

"Shut _up_," I said, "Shut up shut up _shut up._" I focused on his lungs, knitting blood vessels back together, clearing a passageway for clean air. "You-" My eyes rolled as I pumped chakra into his chest, and it was like standing in the middle of a massacre, like broken buildings and broken bodies, like fire and hell and death. His chakra – once so huge, so powerful, so _everything _– was feathering into paper-thin slices of frazzled light, twisting in and around itself as if scared and shocked, burning dimmer by the second. There was ice crawling through my veins "- better not give up. I swear to God, Itachi. "

He convulsed, a great shudder running through him, and his heart skipped a beat. His eyes were closed and I knew he was just barely conscious. With another great heave that had my eyes blacking over and my arms collapsing, I sent in another burst of chakra. I was praying like mad, hyperventilating, fighting back the insistent pressure of sobs that filled my chest. "I love you," I told him, pushing my way up his torso to whisper it into his ear. His eyes were closed, blood thick on his long lashes, carving his face like some sort of sick, horrible mask. I choked on my heart. "_I love you._ I love you more than anything ever; I love more than pocky and ramen and sunrise and breathing and I will never forgive you if you leave me know. Never. I will be mad at you until the day I die. _Itachi._ I_ love _you."

I did love him. I loved him perfectly.

And love moves mountains.

Minutes that could have been years later, I felt the change. It was beautiful, perfect, that second your head splits the water and your mouth opens for the air, the bubble in your chest that builds and then you're laughing 'til you cry and in that moment, my chakra in him and his life in my hands – I knew he was going to live. And sure enough, beneath my hands, his chest rose in a deep, easy inhalation.

I sort of lost it, then.

The tears started anew – big, messy things better suited for toddlers and soap operas – and I was blubbering like an absolute fool, making weird, wet noises that were somewhere between sobs, prayers, and wild giggles. I was exhausted, numb, the world was blurry, my head was pounding in time to my pulse and he looked to be unconscious – but – but _damn._

I took his face between my shaking hands and kissed him hard.

"Itachi," I said, voice singsong through the wavering, "wake up."

He was immobile. I was undeterred. I giggled through wobbling lips.

"Itachi – you need to wake up. You need to wake up because we – Itachi we need to go _home._ We need to drag Sasuke's sorry ass back to Kohona. You and me. And then – _oh Itachi_ – then let's go have ramen, ok? And my mom will cry and Naruto will laugh and you two can sit side by side and suck noodles. Then, we're going to buy dango from my favorite stand and take it down to the river. We're going to put our feet in the water, and we're going to talk about – we're going to talk about _spring_. Yeah. Spring. And in the spring we'll watch the Sakura blossoms and you will be happy because they will remind me of you, even thought I'll be right there with you, and you will be happy because your life will be beautiful. Because I will protect you." There was a second when the bubble of my joy almost burst, but there was a fire in my belly and my next words were fierce, resolutely protective of that joy. "Got that? No one will ever hurt you again, and I don't care what the elders or the anbu, or even Tsunade says, I don't care what they try to do, because you are mine and I will not let them have you. I will shatter the sky and rip apart the Earth if they try to challenge that. No one will hurt you and I will love you and it will be a brand new world, I swear. But first – first you have to open your eyes."

And Itachi – my sweet, beautiful, obedient Itachi – did. After a small grimace and painful blink, he realized where he was, who was hovering over him, what had just happened. And looked at me with those broken eyes full of something that burned truer than anything I had ever seen before and he whispered in a voice like love, "Sakura."

When I smiled down at him – exhausted and damp with tears and sweat and blood, overflowing with joy – he smiled back like he never had. "I love you," he said, because that was all that mattered.

"Then stay with me," I said, and we were as sugary sweet a cliché as anything but it didn't matter. I ran my thumbs over his cheeks, fumbling and affectionate, pressed my forehead down to his, planted sloppy kiss on the bloody patch of his right eye. "I love you. I love you I love you I love you. So stay with me."

"Always," he said. And in that moment, it was like the every bright beautiful thing in the world has taken up residence in my ribcage, like all the joy to ever exist had been given to me, wrapped up with bright, sparkly bow.

_Listen._

I believed him.

* * *

**note: **OH, DAMN. HE DIDN'T DIE. Whoot whoot party. I had you fooled, didn't I? There have been hints at doom for, like, _ever_, because I am a bad author in that I would rather be tricky than only hint at reality, riiiight? Huh huh? (Friends. _Friends._ Confession: I could not kill someone I invested so much time, effort, and love into. Really. Couldn't do it. )

And real quick clarification, in case it's not obvious, which would make sense because it's not stellarly written but _whatever_: Itachi was trying to tell Sasuke The Truth. As in, up until the moment Sakura caught up to him, he was going to his death, but then she was there and he broke and after he knocked her out he went, not to die, but to try to save his new life. Which I actually thought about a lot. Andd… there will probably be another interlude chapter about it. Maybe? Or maybe I'll just end it?

Final note, I swear: the title. It was originally, "when all else has fallen, love still stands." Or something to that effect. But then I decided that I didn't want you to know that it ended happily, so the part that implies anything other than doom and despair got axed. But, you know, just FYI.

GO LOOK AT MY PRETTY FANART! Litewaves is an insanely badass awesome artist and she pretty much made my week because – for real – the picture is _puuurty. _


	17. interlude: uncross your heart

**note:** Technical issues are responsible for the delay. Yuck. For those who are wondering: Next chapter = last. Buuuuuut. There might be something else. This is another one of those weirdo chapters that are not really chapters but that I write to keep everything straight in me head. (I am not even joking. The notes I write to myself sound like that stuff below. I even dream to narration. I swear. It's ridiculous.)

* * *

_interlude: uncross your heart, unhope to die_

* * *

He brings her home.

He promised her he would. And Uchiha Itachi, for all his other dark flaws, is good on his word. So he bring her home - the little snip of pink hair and wide eyes and understanding that runs deep and clear - no matter how much he wishes he could keep her near and near and forever and ever amen.

He tries not to think about it. He tries very, very hard. But she makes it harder still, has made it more impossibly hard than he would have ever imagined ever since that night in their old hideout, her knife flashing in the dark and her eyes welling wet-wide to cry for sins not her own.

He wishes he could tell her. She smiles and sits next to him, tilts her face to the stars, bumps her shoulder against his and pries open his inhibitions with thin little fingers that hold the strength of a world. He wishes he could look into her moon-washed eyes and make her understand how brilliant she is, how beautiful she is, how brave and kind and compassionate and how by just being in his life, she has flipped everything he has ever taken for granted on its head, turned the universe inside out and painted over the black in shades on sunrise. He wishes he could make her see how sorry he is, how much he wishes it could be different; that he could be different, that he could be more, that he could be some fraction of what she deserves, that he could stay and try to earn the grace of her smile. He lets his fingers fall over hers, careful and without pressure, and smiles when her own story makes her laugh. He wishes, he hopes, he secretly prays, and it is all so damn useless anyway.

Uchiha Itachi loves Haruno Sakura, and he is going to leave her.

* * *

He thinks she knows.

She knows him, after all. She knows him like no one does, like no one ever has. She knows the nuances of his expressions, the truth in his tone, the length of his fingers and the secrets of his heart. She knows him in ways that matter, and – correctly guessing her words before she speaks, anticipating her smile before her lips move, recognizing the way her breathing changes when she is waking up – he thinks he might know her too…

He _knows_ she knows.

Sakura, who has never been anything less than wonderful, is looking at him with those haunting eyes shattered by her own faith, practically demanding to know _why_. He is going to leave her, he is going to walk away, abandon her beneath the starry skies and he _hates himself so bad_ for it, for her. He hates himself but he loves Sasuke and he _loves _her (more than Sasuke, his mind almost tells him but doesn't, because there comes a point where you cannot quantify) and he is not right in the head, he is not ok, the world is a horrible place to have been born. He is so sorry, so terribly sorry, because there can be no denying that the girl on her knees in front of him cares. That was never supposed to happen. How did that happen? How can she care?

He tries to make her understand.

She just looks at him. That haunting, ancient knowledge makes her young face old.

He tells her goodnight, because if he doesn't, he will tell her horrible lies that every beat of his heart wishes could be truths.

* * *

He stands above her sleeping form and tells her, "I wish I could have belonged to you."

(And he does. He _does._ He wishes he could belong to her because he loves her and she loves him and he thinks that their love might be perfect. Had he been anyone else, their love would have been enough, it would have been _more_ than enough - and his chest is constricting, it's getting hard to breathe, because he is Uchiha Itachi and he is a monster most mad, but for a second that doesn't matter at all because the _only_ thing that matters is the girl at his feet. She is lying on her right side, the one she always favors, left leg bent sharply, right arm curled close, just like always. He wonders if she will grow old sleeping like that, how long it will be before a man takes his place beside her, curls up around her deceptively tiny frame, wraps his arms around her waist and - and, _damn_, that hurts. Love hurts. Of course it does. It always has. But this time it is his fault, because Sakura's love is perfect - is kind and gentle and fills him up from head to toe with a grace he thought he could never touch again - but his love, his love is what is hurting him, will hurt her. _His _love is what taints _their _love and makes the perfect not enough. Only, maybe it wouldn't, because he loves her like no one ever told him it was possible to love anyone, and for an impossible love he might be able to do the impossible. He might be able to change. He might be able to stop. He is swaying on his feet, trying to leave but unable, immobile, because _maybe he could do it_ but - but - but - )

"I wish I could stay," he whispers like a scream.

It tastes like an honesty he hasn't known in years.

* * *

He was doing fine.

He was breathing normally. He was in control of his thoughts. He was praying to every star in the sky that she would wake up and return to a world that loved her and that she loved. He was placating himself with the knowledge that wherever Sakura goes, loves follows, and he need not worry for her because she is stronger than the sun.

He was basking in the warmth of her memories, remembering to be grateful for the time she gave him. Remembering that in his life, light was a gift too undeserved to mourn over the loss of. She had cared and that mattered. That mattered enough to keep his feet moving one-two-one-two.

(_Almost_. It _almost_ mattered enough, but Itachi is so very practiced at the art of lying to himself, and he is able to ignore the way he keeps looking over his shoulder, pausing and _almost, almost_ turning back.)

But then she came along, screaming and cussing and falling apart at the seams.

He comes undone. Sakura is too much. She has always been too much. She is begging him, pleading with him, and he is sinking, falling. His poor broken heart is breaking further, even though that should be impossible, and Sakura's fingers are shaking and her breath is catching and Itachi is telling her the truth as he never has before, crying because she is upset and he never wanted that and how can he make her see?

There are so many things he wants to tell her. _I never wanted to leave you, I never wanted to lie to you, I never wanted to see you cry, I never wanted to see you hurt. I wish you peace, and I wish you strength, and I wish you the will to hold onto your grace like life for as long as the sun shines. I only want your happiness, I only want you smile, I only want to spend all the days of my life huddled beneath rain sodden blankets with your hands on me, and I only want to spend every night for the rest of eternity letting you talk dark into day. I only want you, and I only want you to want me, and if I were any other man in any other time, I would fall before your feet and give you everything I have. _

Compared to all he wishes he could say, that which he does manage seems inadequate. But the words – _the truth_ – make Sakura smile in a weak wobbly way, and as she buries in against him, he thinks she might forgive him, someday. She loves him. Oh, God. _She loves him._ As her sobs echo against his chest, Itachi is ever more certain he does not want her to have to forgive him, not ever again.

Dangerous thought are sliding around his brain. Impossible thoughts. Fantastic dreams. Selfish, wild possibilities, tantalizing him with the promise of Sakura and hope the likes of which has never existed before. In convincing her, he is trying to convince himself, because he realizes - not quite suddenly but this hits him like an epiphany all the same - that he does not want to leave her. That he has not wanted to leave her in a very long time. And now he has to remind himself to breathe because maybe – the strength of _almost_ echoes through his mind – maybe he has not been _able_ to leave her in a very long time.

There is a breaking girl in his arms. There is a breaking girl in his arms, and she is beautiful, and brave, and he loves her like the earth loves summer storms and spring showers.

He could do it, for her.

He could.

She knelt over him not so long ago and told him, "I forgive you."

(Does he need anyone else's forgiveness?)

He could do it.

Maybe. He will try. He almost tells her, but catches himself.

Better not to make another promise that might only break and cut her up.

Instead, he kisses her, and it is the biggest mistake of his life. Any hope he had of following that original path is lost to the tears he tastes between their lips.

He _will_ do it.

He knocks her out. More self-hate. But as he scoops her up and holds her close, more for him than for her, he imagines that – he imagines that he might be around to ask her forgiveness. He imagines she will give it.

And so he is betraying everything he has been for as long as his eyes have been red.

He brushes the fine pink hairs from her forehead, hears in repeat the way she begged.

His heart is light, impossibly contradicting the circumstances, but he supposes that this is what it feels like to finally be free of your own lies.

He gives into the moment and pressed his lips against her forehead. This doesn't feel like betrayal.

* * *

He finds Sasuke easily. This has been planned for too many years to go anything but smoothly.

"I don't want to fight you," he says, even as Sasuke's eyes bleed red.

"Listen," he says, even as Sasuke charges. "_Listen._"

* * *

Useless.

It is useless.

Fucking stupid idiot asshole. That's what he is. He hates himself.

In her honor, he goes down fighting, still begging to be heard.

* * *

And then she is there.

She is at his side, she is sobbing, she is apologizing on words that choke and sputter and waver and scream in a quiet way.

He wants her to understand.

"I tried. For you, for me, for us."

_I didn't want to die_.

But he is going to die. He is going to die, because Sakura is kind and lovely and powerful, but she is only a little girl and he is only a little boy and death haunts his steps like an old friend.

* * *

He is dying and he remembers her.

Her hair is somewhere between short and long, her eyes somewhere between _light_ and green. When he only knew her as something that mattered to Sasuke, he watched her sleep and waited for her to die. She glared at him for days that seemed like they would never end. When she was dying she was a winter storm and when she forgave him, a spring shower. She throws punches like other girls blow kisses; she is half warrior goddess of old and half fairy princess and she is all Sakura. She fights like a demon and curses like a sailor. When she is angry, she juts her chin and dares the world to question her; when she is happy, she walks like a dance and laughs like echoing memories.

He wishes he could have heard her laugh more. He wishes he could have let her sob the secrets of her soul out against his shoulder. Sometimes, when she smiled just right, he wanted to run his hands over her body and kiss her until the world faded. Sometimes, when she cried without tears or sobs, he wanted to hold her hand and smooth her hair and do whatever it would take to make her smile. He wanted to know what she looked like when she got mad at Naruto, he wanted to see her childhood home, he wanted buy her treats at her favorite store. He wanted to see her smile the way she does when she is happier than words could say, and he wanted to curl up around her to match his breaths to hers, and he wanted to be the reason for her smile.

He wanted her to save him.

* * *

And then she is there and he is too.

Sakura is stronger than the sun. How could he have ever doubted her?

"I love you," he says.


	18. chapter fifteen: hear

_chapter fifteen: hear_

_

* * *

_

We brought Sasuke home. It took a longer than it should have, because Itachi was still beaten up pretty badly, and we had to wake Sasuke up and tell him the truth and _oh, God_. That was bad.

There was a lot of screaming involved. A lot of thrashing wildly against bonds I was nervously positive would not continue to survive the abuse. Sasuke called me names and threatened to kill me about five hundred times. He spat at Itachi and growled like hell rumbling. There was crying. Mostly mine, because even if I had thought I was ready for this, I was not. Itachi, too, because he has never even pretended to be ready for this face-off, and for him it was the same as meeting your greatest fear head-on. And, finally, after screaming rage and monstrous bouts of burning hate, Sasuke.

He just broke. That is the only way to describe it. Sitting there, tied up and looking at Itachi, who was kneeling in front of him, he took a deep breath, face a sneer. I waited for the next round of shouting. Instead, he exhaled like wind whistling through a dead forest, bowed his head, and cried.

* * *

I came home with two broken enemies trailing behind me.

We were about ten steps in when the shadows took form and we were surrounded. I am pretty sure that surprise was the only thing that kept them from attacking right away.

"Do not attack," I said, jutting my chin and outstretching my empty hands. I tried to look peaceful, but every muscle in my body quivered, ready to protect. "My name is Haruno Sakura, ninja of the Leaf, and I need to talk to the Hokage right –"

"SAKURA-CHAN!"

Naruto was there. Naruto's arms were around my ribcage and my feet were not on the ground.

And even though he spluttered and yelled and cursed and flailed over my company, he listened when I told him I had to get to Tsunade right away, and that Itachi and Sasuke could not be hurt and _Naruto, Naruto, I missed you so much._ He listened and he helped me make sure that when the anbu stepped forward it was only to make sure Itachi and Sasuke were properly subdued.

We went to Tsunade.

* * *

Tsunade listened. She shook her head, sighed, looked old and broken.

She said my name like she was about to break my heart.

I told her that I was ready to throw my headband at her feet. At my back, Naruto (who has never let me down and who never will) glared and said he would do the same. I reached my hand back to squeeze his fingers and wondered what I had ever done to deserve such perfect loyalty.

Tsunade nodded. She sighed. She stood up and reached out to hug me.

"We missed you," she said.

I think she was proud.

* * *

My mother cried and Naruto laughed. I ate ramen and slept in my old bed and lived through a thousands hugs, a million kisses, a lifetime of happy tears and countless voices telling me, _we were so worried._

* * *

"Itachi?" Naruto asked, walking me home late one night, our arms linked because I had realized that some people are forever and they deserve to know it.

"Yeah," I said.

He didn't ask why, but I said, "Listen."

He did.

* * *

Itachi and Sasuke were sent to prison for six months.

(I screamed and curses and slammed by hand down hard enough to remind everyone I was not someone they could control, anymore. I fought and changed and I think I surprised everyone, because since when did little Sakura stand up tall enough to keep the weight of power from toppling her?)

Naruto and I took turns sitting on stools outside their cells, eyes alert and glaring every time someone walked by with disgust in their eyes. I didn't care about their distain, I didn't care what they thought – all I cared about was the feel of Itachi's fingers in mine and the pressure of duty that extended beyond rationality on my shoulders.

The whispers started, cruel and vicious.

_Why? _my friends asked.

* * *

We are happy, now.

It was worth the time. It was worth the effort.

* * *

Sasuke and Itachi talked, separated by bars and a thick wall of concrete.

Whenever the conversation started – slow and hesitant – I would leave, go for a walk, and leave brothers to heal old wounds.

* * *

Shortly after they were freed from prison (but still on house arrest, still watched from every shadow), I had a talk with Sasuke.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry that – that I attacked you."

"You love him," he said.

"Yes."

He shifted in his seat, didn't look at me. Sasuke was different. He didn't know who he was anymore, I realized. He had a brother and a future and friends who still hadn't given up on him. He didn't know what he was doing.

"I love him too," he said, finally, hardly more than a whisper, only maybe meant to reach my ears. He cleared his throat. "So – so thanks. For stopping me."

"You're welcome."

"And, Sakura, I – " he looked me in the eyes, grimaced, was almost the boy I knew, but not quite because before my eyes he was becoming _more,_ "I'm sorry. For everything."

After that, we were more friends than we had ever been before.

* * *

I healed his eyes, just as soon as I could. It was right after the days of being locked away in a small apartment he called his own. He was sitting in my family's living room, my mother and father's voices in the background.

"Are you sure?" I asked, surprising myself.

"Yes," he said, pressing his mouth to my temple.

* * *

One day, Itachi, Sasuke, and Naruto went to have ramen together.

I saw them, on my way back from the hospital.

They were sitting there, on those little stools, Itachi Naruto Sasuke. Naruto was talking, his face alive and his hands waving. Sasuke was smirking, and I watched as something he said made Naruto's face turn red, changed his words into shouts. Itachi sat to the side, smiling small, watching carefully.

It was perfect.

I turned around, careful not to be seen, and went home. The whole way, I cried.

"Is anything wrong?" my mom asked, reaching out to fold me against her.

"No," I laughed. "Everything is perfect."

* * *

Itachi and Sasuke, a year after our return, went to find Madara.

It was part of a plea deal by which they would be cleared of all charges. It was part of an unspoken contract between the two of them, a means to bridge that final gap between brothers. It was part of the way Itachi held me, as if scared the world was going to rob him once more.

I didn't want them to go. I especially didn't want them to go alone. But Itachi took my head between his hands, traced his name against my cheek, and told me that they needed to. That he would be much happier if I please, please stayed home.

He said home, and he wrapped his arms across my back and tucked me beneath his chin.

I made him promise to come back. "Safe, in once piece, and – you know – _happy, _or something."

He laughed a huff of air into the side of my neck and promised he would.

And they did. They came back triumphant, bittersweet, more true brothers than they had been when they left and a little more whole than either had been in entirely too long.

I remember asking Itachi, my lips near his ear, if he really, _truly_ was ok.

"Better everyday," he told me.

* * *

We are happy, now.

I am a ninja and Sasuke is too and Naruto will be the next hokage.

Itachi will never be a ninja again.

"Am I a coward?" he asks me sometimes, voice muffled against my shoulder, crumpled and weak and human for a moment.

"No," I tell him. Then I smile all goofy and sad and sappy and true. "You're braver than the stars."

He thinks he might want to join the police force.

He says, only half joking, smirking in a way that breaks my heart and puts the pieces back together even more whole than before, that he might just be my housewife.

I tell him that I love him, and he smiles without a care in the world.

* * *

Sometimes, we fight. We bicker and we scowl and we make snide remarks about the other, when we are feeling particularly nasty. Sometimes, Itachi makes me want to pull my hair out and sometimes, he has to leave the room because apparently, I drive him crazy. Sometimes, he says things he doesn't mean and I say things he takes the wrong way and being in love doesn't mean you feel warm fuzzies for someone every second of everyday.

Sometimes, I knock on his door and apologize with downcast eyes. Sometimes, he knocks on mine.

Sometimes, we fight.

But we always make up.

* * *

We're not married, in case you were wondering.

But we will be, someday.

(Whenever I remind Itachi of this, he looks like he is going to cry for a second, but then he picks me up and twirls me around the room and I am reminded of rain and my own high giggles.)

* * *

People have gotten used to him, finally.

He doesn't get as many glares, there are not as many whispers that haunt his steps.

People forget. People move on. It's what they do, how they survive. I am sure that before too long, the Uchiha massacre and the old clan's black sheep will have been forgotten for tomorrow's gossip.

But, still, when my friends, when acquaintances – when people I don't even _know_ – manage to get me alone, they are more likely than not to lean close, glance around nervously, and ask me, "_Why?_"

* * *

Itachi is happy, now.

He's broken around the edges. He's shattered and tattered and the world has thrown too much his way. There is an Itachi, lost somewhere with all the other unrealized possibilities, that will never be; that died before he ever lived. And I know he's not perfect, I know that he has monsters under his bed and ghosts in his closets, I know he's lived on the brink of sanity and can never truly be ok – I know.

But by God is he beautiful.

You should see him, wandering around the village, eyes wide and face soft. You should watch him, puttering around his new apartment, fingers reaching out to trace the windows and the doorframes. And when he looks at Sasuke, eyes faraway and sad, mouth smiling but soul crying, adoring as anything I've ever seen and heartbroken as anything I could ever imagine… I think it is those moments, when he is most vulnerable and most human, when he is raw and hurt and needing, but somehow still strong and courageous and miraculously _happy_– I think that is when I love him best.

* * *

I am happy, now, happier than I ever imagined I could be.

Every day, Itachi turns to me, face soft and mouth smiling, and I realize all over again that life is a beautiful place to be. I grab his hand and I feel it, welling up from my toes, building and swelling and it is everywhere, echoing in my empty spaces and filling them up. Love feels like trying not to laugh at the funniest joke you've ever heard; like the hot, hopeful tears that burn your throat and light your heart with bittersweet joy; like realizing that you've found what's been missing since the day you were born. It is sweet and painful and my chest aches something fierce, my eyes sting and I'm a sap, but I am _so happy_, because this matters like nothing has ever mattered before.

I kiss him until the world glitters starlight bright.

* * *

I love him.

* * *

Everyone wants to know why.

* * *

Listen.

* * *

_I love him. _

_

* * *

_

**the end**

**

* * *

**

**the big bad end note to end all end notes:**

Look at that. Sugar-sweet cliché as you please happy ending. It was always going to end this way, because no matter how many times I considered gloomy-doomy-doom, I couldn't do it. I am not sorry. So they are happy, because they have fought for it, and life is not an exercise in despair, and sometimes you can win the impossible battles. Right? Right.

(Remember that: _You can win._)

On to more important things. Namely, how grateful I am to everyone reading this. This story started tentatively, and I suffered more than my fair share of moments of wanting to quit, but – look! It's done. And, truth be told, I am super proud of it, typos and moments of idiocy aside. The support of readers has been _fabulous_. And sometimes entirely too good for my ego. Seriously. AND I HAVE FANART, I am going to tell you a mini-story: Once upon a time, the only creative writing teacher I have ever had told me I sucked and that I really, really should just stick to science. And then I was all _fuck you, man_ and found and take that, world, I just wrote a long story with actual chapters! Largely thanks to you, person reading this.

Love all around.

If you have made it this far, you get a prize! Did I mention that in the course of creating this story, I have pretty much fallen in love with Itachi and Sakura? Because I have. And I don't want to let them go, because I am selfish like that. (Who would have thunk? Not me. Didn't expect this story to become my baby _at all_, but here I am cooing and coddling and that's how it goes.) Sooooo. Sequel? I think yes. Only, not more than a chapter. And in one-shot format. And because you have read this whole long note and I love you, you get to contribute! If you want. Here is how it will go: You will either ask a question or provide a prompt (a word, phrase) and it will be included. For example, _someonestolemyname_ informed me via PM conversation, wants Naruto and Itachi to have a conversation. She also wants something based on the prompt _ends._

(disclaimer: I will try my best to include everything and to answer every question, but I am utterly imperfect so this is a hesitant promise that should not be mistaken for an absolute guarantee.)

Start looking for it in… a week?

Got it? Cool!

May your days be full of pretty words, perfectly imperfect people, and enough sunshine to make sure you can see the beauty of being alive. Be happy, yeah?

-mrie


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